Creative Director
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What would happen if a human drank vampire blood and ate ghoul flesh? (if anything at all?)
He'd probably at least get sick. He'd also probably get REALLY sick and die and become an undead. The rules don't account for that... but the various vampire and ghoul/zombie stories out there do.
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Creative Director
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Hi, James,
I remember back when Carrion Crown was first announced, its initial write-up on the product page mentioned something called "campaign curses". Obviously, they were dropped as the publish date neared and I don't recall ever seeing anything about them since then.
When I was looking forward to this AP (being a fan of gothic horror), my curiosity was piqued, since I love the thought of a tormented, cursed character that has inner demons to face along with the more obvious threats found in an adventure.
My questions are, what, if any, was the plan for "campaign curses", and will we ever see them?
Dunno. I wasn't that heavily involved in Carrion Crown, but I'm pretty sure that no "campaign curses" were ever designed.
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Creative Director
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Bah. Magus is a English word now, thus it is pluralized by adding a ‘s” or “es”. Same with octopus. ;-)First off... Magi is the plural; magus is singular. Sorry... couldn't hold back the editor genes there! :P
Doesn't mean I want to be lazy about it.
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Creative Director
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1) A bladed weapon is any weapon that deals slashing damage. A hafted weapon is any weapon that has a handle that's longer than the actual mechanism of inflicting damage—this is pretty vague and open to interpretation. Axes and pole arms and maces and picks are hafted weapons, but swords are not.
Is a whip a bladed weapon then?
Is it a hafted weapon?
Fine. Let me ammend my ruling to simply point out that "bladed" and "hafted" are descriptive terms, and that we should apply our knowledge of the definitions of those words to make common sense judgements. If we don't, then suddenly whips are bladed weapons. Furthermore, a whip is a real world weapon that any of us who've seen Indiana Jones movies or have been to a rodeo or... done other stuff... recognize the shape of.
A whip does not have a blade, so no, it's not a bladed weapon.
A whip doesn't have a haft, so no, it's not a hafted weapon.
And the fact that these kinds of questions can exist is one of my least favorite aspects of the d20 rules.
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Bah. Magus is a English word now, thus it is pluralized by adding a ‘s” or “es”. Same with octopus. ;-)First off... Magi is the plural; magus is singular. Sorry... couldn't hold back the editor genes there! :P
Actually, no. James is correct re: plural of "magus" being "magi." The words are direct borrows from Latin, effectively becoming an English word with an irregular plural form. English has PLENTY of those, most of which aren't borrowed from other languages. (e.g. "man/men").
Also, the proper plural of "octopus" has always been "octopuses." (Although, I suppose it should technically be "octopodes"). The word was coined in the late 18th century by an English naturalist whose name escapes me, from the Greek "octo-" for 8, and "pus" (suffix form of "pod") for "foot." Greek was in vogue for scholars at the time.
A lot of people assumed that "octopus" was a singular Latin word, because it ends in "-us," and over-corrected by pluralizing it as a Latin word. Hence, the popular-but-wrong "octopi".
So another person's question made me think of something about Aasimar (which has nothing to do with the game I'm running, just the thought popped into my head after I read it) when I looked up the ability he asked about...
is extremely distant. An aasimar with this racial
trait counts as an outsider (native) and a humanoid
(human) for any effect related to race, including feat
prerequisites and spells that affect humanoids.
Now, my question is about the counts as a humanoid (human) for any effect related to race, including feat prerequisites and spells that affect humanoids.
Would that include or not include such things as the Human only Imperious bloodline? I could see it both ways, especially with Imperious making you stop having to eat, drink, age... only violence can kill you.
Bah. Magus is a English word now, thus it is pluralized by adding a ‘s” or “es”. Same with octopus. ;-)First off... Magi is the plural; magus is singular. Sorry... couldn't hold back the editor genes there! :P
Actually, no. James is correct re: plural of "magus" being "magi." The words are direct borrows from Latin, effectively becoming an English word with an irregular plural form. English has PLENTY of those, most of which aren't borrowed from other languages. (e.g. "man/men").
Also, the proper plural of "octopus" has always been "octopuses." (Although, I suppose it should technically be "octopodes"). The word was coined in the late 18th century by an English naturalist whose name escapes me, from the Greek "octo-" for 8, and "pus" (suffix form of "pod") for "foot." Greek was in vogue for scholars at the time.
A lot of people assumed that "octopus" was a singular Latin word, because it ends in "-us," and over-corrected by pluralizing it as a Latin word. Hence, the popular-but-wrong "octopi".
I love you for even just suggesting "octopodes." :)
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Creative Director
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So another person's question made me think of something about Aasimar (which has nothing to do with the game I'm running, just the thought popped into my head after I read it) when I looked up the ability he asked about...
** spoiler omitted **
Now, my question is about the counts as a humanoid (human) for any effect related to race, including feat prerequisites and spells that affect humanoids.
Would that include or not include such things as the Human only Imperious bloodline? I could see it both ways, especially with Imperious making you stop having to eat, drink, age... only violence can kill you.
Yup. The aasimar counts as humanoid (human) for the purposes of spells and the like. You can charm person or enlarge person such an aasimar.
And that would probably include the imperious bloodline... especially if you justified it to your GM with an awesome backstory.
The word was coined in the late 18th century by an English naturalist whose name escapes me, from the Greek "octo-" for 8, and "pus" (suffix form of "pod") for "foot." Greek was in vogue for scholars at the time.
Late eighteenth...
...what was the English word for octopus before the word octopus was invented?! o.O;
Am I right to suspect that the urdefhans' infamous two-bladed swords were originally intended to have two blades mounted parallel to each other, rather than lining up as they're depicted in art?
The word was coined in the late 18th century by an English naturalist whose name escapes me, from the Greek "octo-" for 8, and "pus" (suffix form of "pod") for "foot." Greek was in vogue for scholars at the time.Late eighteenth...
...what was the English word for octopus before the word octopus was invented?! o.O;
Scylla, Kraken, or some other tentacled sea monster probably.
Do you hope to see anything in particular for the next Wayfinder magazine?
Are all the base classes originally designed In-House first? I recall you designing the alchemist, and I'm curious if any of the freelancers have ever designed any of the non-prestige classes.
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Creative Director
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Am I right to suspect that the urdefhans' infamous two-bladed swords were originally intended to have two blades mounted parallel to each other, rather than lining up as they're depicted in art?
In my homebrew game, yeah, they have two blades parallel to each other. Turns out, a lot with the urdefhans is difficult to convey to artists, though.
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Creative Director
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Are all the base classes originally designed In-House first? I recall you designing the alchemist, and I'm curious if any of the freelancers have ever designed any of the non-prestige classes.
I designed the first build for the alchemist and the gunslinger. ALL of the base classes are designed in-house, though, due to the fact that they're among the most complicated things in the game and usually the first things in a book we need to design in order to give the freelancers an assignment on that book in the first place.
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Creative Director
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I know you converted Prestige Classes (the Submissive and The Dominant) for the Runelords Anniversary Edition, will the converted prestige classes ever be released in their entirety?
Probably not, since I didn't convert the entire class. I just did enough work to build the stat blocks.
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Creative Director
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What are Iomedae's thoughts on undead? The Knights of Ozem are very anti-undead, but all the stuff about them being so in general (instead of against a specific undead and his forces) seems to be about the "modern" knights after her assent.
Her thoughts are that, most of the time they are blights and horrors that must be destroyed before they can spread their evil. In the rare case of a non-evil undead, she looks upon them with a mixture of pity and distaste, and would amend her "destroy on sight" preference to a "help them find peace" preference.
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Creative Director
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Ok, in reference to your post above... and also the FAQ.
The FAQ states that half orc/elf cannot get the favored class bonuses from the elf/human races, nor can they take the racial archetypes (spec treesinger was the example)
The Racial Heritage feat for humans -does- allow feats, archetypes, and traits. Does this allow the favored class bonuses, since it is obviously more powerful, and has been clarified as such?
As well, the Aasimar Scion of Humanity does the same thing, but only for human racials, per your above posting, does this (being the same power level as the feat), also allow you to take the human favored class bonuses?
As a caveat, I would already argue that if it does, then you have to choose which race list you use when you take the feat(heritage) or at creation (scion) and that this choice is permanent, but give you the choice for which race to follow.
EDIT: also, Blood of angels references Small aasimar on page 4, saying that they are Small, but otherwise get the normal skills/wpn training/whatever for their race. Is that small as in short for their race, or Small as in small creature features (i.e. -1 cmb/cmd, +1 ac, -2 str +2 dex) etc.?
I'm actually not super familiar with Advanced Race Guide... assuming that's where a lot of these questions are coming from.
The limits on what abilities what races can take from the Advanced Race Guide should be as flexible as the GM wants them to be. In print in adventures if we ever use APG content (unlikely but not impossible) we'll not break the racial boundaries at all.
Racial Heritage sounds like it won't allow favored class bonuses, since it doesn't mention them at all.
Same for Scion of Humanity.
Frankly, racial type stuff is BETTER when it's used for the race it was intended, in my opinion, since it helps keep the flavor of that race with that race. Aasimars are aasimars, not humans, after all.
Small aasimars gain the same size modifiers for being small that a gnome or halfling gains: +1 size bonus to AC and attack rolls, –1 penalty to CMB and CMD, +4 size bonus on Stealth checks. That's it.
Am I right to suspect that the urdefhans' infamous two-bladed swords were originally intended to have two blades mounted parallel to each other, rather than lining up as they're depicted in art?In my homebrew game, yeah, they have two blades parallel to each other. Turns out, a lot with the urdefhans is difficult to convey to artists, though.
Parallel... Kinda like this?
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Creative Director
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Parallel... Kinda like this?Am I right to suspect that the urdefhans' infamous two-bladed swords were originally intended to have two blades mounted parallel to each other, rather than lining up as they're depicted in art?In my homebrew game, yeah, they have two blades parallel to each other. Turns out, a lot with the urdefhans is difficult to convey to artists, though.
Exactly like that.
Does falling count against the total movement you can move a turn?
Say, my movement is 30ft, and I fall 10ft., can I move 30ft. and make a standard action, or 20ft.?
Did you... just favorite your own post? :p
Did you... just favorite your own post? :pDoes falling count against the total movement you can move a turn?
Say, my movement is 30ft, and I fall 10ft., can I move 30ft. and make a standard action, or 20ft.?
It's easier for me to keep track of my posts this way.
I am not trying to blow myself.
Fair enough. I'm just teasing :)
@ James Jacobs
In addition to blackbloodtroll's question, there's a thread where we seem to be unable to agree on if you can jump, attack, and fall in one turn. Some say yes, others say it'd require Spring Attack and others think you'd stay in midair at the end of your turn, fall the next turn and take falling damage. What insight would you have on this predicament? Thanks for any response.
If you're converting a statblock from one of Paizo's 3.5 adventures to Pathfinder, would you keep the class levels of an NPC the same or keep the CR the same? For instance, a human rogue 4 is CR 4 in 3.5 but CR 3 in Pathfinder, so would you give the NPC an extra class level or let the CR of that creature go down by one?
In your home games is dragonhide armor more or less comfortable to its metal equivalent?
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Creative Director
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Does falling count against the total movement you can move a turn?
Say, my movement is 30ft, and I fall 10ft., can I move 30ft. and make a standard action, or 20ft.?
Falling doesn't count unless you fall so far that more than a few seconds pass. In most cases, that won't count.
NOTE: If you fall and take damage, you're probably prone, so you'll probably need to stand up after you fall.
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Creative Director
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In addition to blackbloodtroll's question, there's a thread where we seem to be unable to agree on if you can jump, attack, and fall in one turn. Some say yes, others say it'd require Spring Attack and others think you'd stay in midair at the end of your turn, fall the next turn and take falling damage. What insight would you have on this predicament? Thanks for any response.
Jumping is part of your movement. You can't jump further than you can move. If you have a speed of 30 feet and you have an ungodly high Acrobatics check and want to jump over a 40 foot gap... you'll need to take 2 move actions to do that since you can only cover 30 feet of that jump in a move.
When you jump, the landing part of the jump happens in the same round as you jump, as a general rule. If you want to jump up into the air to stab a flying creature or someone on a ledge or whatever... you take a move action to jump up, a standard action to stab, and then falling back down is free. You take the falling damage on your turn after you move and attack.
I'm not sure if it's in the rules anywhere or not (if it's not, it SHOULD be), but the way I play it is that if you take ANY damage from a fall, you're prone at the end of the fall. It helps to model the fact that falling is bad and messes you up.
The only way I'd say you'd stay in the air at the end of your turn after you jump is if you jumped off a really really really high cliff and were still falling.
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Creative Director
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If you're converting a statblock from one of Paizo's 3.5 adventures to Pathfinder, would you keep the class levels of an NPC the same or keep the CR the same? For instance, a human rogue 4 is CR 4 in 3.5 but CR 3 in Pathfinder, so would you give the NPC an extra class level or let the CR of that creature go down by one?
Depends on the encounter. Sometimes I change it, some times I don't. USUALLY I aim to keep the CR unchanged, which means that USUALLY that means the NPC gains a level. In some cases, that messes adventures and encounters up when that additional level grants an ability or spell or whatever that would render the story of the adventure or encounter moot or different, in which case I'll usually either just have the NPC multiclass or simply keep the lower CR version and give him more minions or just give him a 20-point buy and PC wealth to artificially inflate his CR.
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Does falling count against the total movement you can move a turn?
Say, my movement is 30ft, and I fall 10ft., can I move 30ft. and make a standard action, or 20ft.?
Falling doesn't count unless you fall so far that more than a few seconds pass. In most cases, that won't count.
NOTE: If you fall and take damage, you're probably prone, so you'll probably need to stand up after you fall.
So, could I jump in the air to attack a flying creature, then fall to the ground?
Would I need some sort of special feat do it?
Would my turn end mid-air?
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Creative Director
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In your home games is dragonhide armor more or less comfortable to its metal equivalent?
That's never come up.
Looking at the rules for dragonhide armor, I see that dragonhide armor does not adjust the armor check penalty, max Dex mod, or weight of the armor. And since those are the ways the game models the "comfort" of armor... I'd say that dragonhide armor is equally uncomfortable to wear as an equivalent suit of masterwork metal armor.
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Creative Director
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Dear James Jacobs,
I'm playing a summoner and my summon is medium sized and possesses the Ability boost Strength evolution 2 times. I want to cast Evolution surge to make my eidolon large sized (a 4 point evolution as per the spell), when doping this should I re figure the Ability boost so that I only have it one time (getting a total strength boost of +10[8 from large sized and once from ability boost]), should I leave it alone as is (getting a total of 12 Strength [8 form large and 4 from having ability boost twice]), or can I simply not cast evolution surge to grow larger? The reason I haven't simply take large size is because we frequently go into cramped dungeons where a large sized creature would be awkward so I'm a little afraid of making my eidolon large sized on a regular basis.Thank you.
Evolution surge doesn't make you lose existing evolutions. It gives you a new one. When you cast evolution surge on an eidolon to grant it the Large evolution, it gains untyped bonuses to its ability scores. Likewise, the Ability Increase evolution (I assume this is what you're talking about with the "Ability boost Strength evolution") grants untyped bonuses. As a result, they add together and stack; your eidolon would gain a net +12 to its Strength score.
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Creative Director
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Does falling count against the total movement you can move a turn?
Say, my movement is 30ft, and I fall 10ft., can I move 30ft. and make a standard action, or 20ft.?
Falling doesn't count unless you fall so far that more than a few seconds pass. In most cases, that won't count.
NOTE: If you fall and take damage, you're probably prone, so you'll probably need to stand up after you fall.
So, could I jump in the air to attack a flying creature, then fall to the ground?
Would I need some sort of special feat do it?
Would my turn end mid-air?
You could jump into the air to attack a flying creature and then fall to the ground. You don't need a feat to do this, but a high Acrobatics check will help, since your Acrobatics check result is what tells you how high you can jump.
Your turn ends as you land. If you jump higher than 10 feet, you'll take damage when you land and then be prone.
Note also that falling provokes attacks of opportunity, so as you fall away from a flying creature, it'd be able to stab you as you drop away.
Does falling count against the total movement you can move a turn?
Say, my movement is 30ft, and I fall 10ft., can I move 30ft. and make a standard action, or 20ft.?
Falling doesn't count unless you fall so far that more than a few seconds pass. In most cases, that won't count.
NOTE: If you fall and take damage, you're probably prone, so you'll probably need to stand up after you fall.
So, could I jump in the air to attack a flying creature, then fall to the ground?
Would I need some sort of special feat do it?
Would my turn end mid-air?
You could jump into the air to attack a flying creature and then fall to the ground. You don't need a feat to do this, but a high Acrobatics check will help, since your Acrobatics check result is what tells you how high you can jump.
Your turn ends as you land. If you jump higher than 10 feet, you'll take damage when you land and then be prone.
Note also that falling provokes attacks of opportunity, so as you fall away from a flying creature, it'd be able to stab you as you drop away.
If you had Spring Attack could you avoid the falling damage and use the original jump assuming you had the movement to cover the entire distance?
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Creative Director
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If you had Spring Attack could you avoid the falling damage and use the original jump assuming you had the movement to cover the entire distance?
This is increasingly becoming a corner case...
In this case, I'd probably allow the Spring Attack tactic to work as long as you didn't end up actually falling and taking damage from the fall. Spring Attack itself cannot negate your falling damage... but an Acrobatics check can if it's less than 19 feet.
You could jump into the air to attack a flying creature and then fall to the ground. You don't need a feat to do this, but a high Acrobatics check will help, since your Acrobatics check result is what tells you how high you can jump.
Your turn ends as you land. If you jump higher than 10 feet, you'll take damage when you land and then be prone.
Note also that falling provokes attacks of opportunity, so as you fall away from a flying creature, it'd be able to bite you as you drop and try to fly away with you.
This will happen in one of my games, I will find a way!
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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James,
I'm wondering if you have an opinion/know the intent on something regarding harpies:
Myself and others have noticed that Captivating Song doesn't specify an action to use it. Naturally this means it defaults to a standard action - at least to start it. However, there's some disagreement as to what it takes to keep singing.
Some say it's like Bardic Performance, needing only a free action to maintain. Others say it requires a standard action every round, since it doesn't state an exception to the default standard action rule, and also because the fact that it lasts 1 round after the harpy stops singing doesn't make any sense unless the harpy would have a reason to stop.
Any insight?
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Creative Director
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Here's the thing, viewed that way, you might have an Eidolon that might not be legal if it was built as X+4 evoloution points, X being the original number before added by the spell. Is that okay? I've always required that people who use the spell build the eidolon as X+4, retaining all existing evolutions and the ones added have to fit legally. (Certain evolutons cost more when the eidolon's size is evolved up.)Evolution surge doesn't make you lose existing evolutions. It gives you a new one. When you cast evolution surge on an eidolon to grant it the Large evolution, it gains untyped bonuses to its ability scores. Likewise, the Ability Increase evolution (I assume this is what you're talking about with the "Ability boost Strength evolution") grants untyped bonuses. As a result, they add together and stack; your eidolon would gain a net +12 to its Strength score.Dear James Jacobs,
I'm playing a summoner and my summon is medium sized and possesses the Ability boost Strength evolution 2 times. I want to cast Evolution surge to make my eidolon large sized (a 4 point evolution as per the spell), when doping this should I re figure the Ability boost so that I only have it one time (getting a total strength boost of +10[8 from large sized and once from ability boost]), should I leave it alone as is (getting a total of 12 Strength [8 form large and 4 from having ability boost twice]), or can I simply not cast evolution surge to grow larger? The reason I haven't simply take large size is because we frequently go into cramped dungeons where a large sized creature would be awkward so I'm a little afraid of making my eidolon large sized on a regular basis.Thank you.
A spell that makes you rebuild a character to cast it is a bad spell. If that's a concern in your game, I would recommend banning the spell.