Creative Director
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1. What constitutes failing at life?
2. So, would these disembodied intelligences have any stats or are they the stateless sort of being?
"Me: Did runelords routinely have cacodaemons harvest the souls of those about to die?"
"You: No."
3. Well…why not? Why'd they let all those souls go to waste?
4. When fan-statting a runelord, what sort of spell loadout should I generally avoid? I take it I shouldn't OD on whatever the school speciality is.
5. What forms of propaganda would be available to someone who wanted to take over a city state (like, say, Korvosa)?
6. Why wouldn't Sorshen get along with rakshasas? Their race-nationalism? Their caste system fetish?
7. Why would make a succubus want to be a primarily-combat class (e.g. fighter, barbarian)? Isn't their MO toying with people rather than killing them?
8. Whenever I ask a question about logistics or demographics within RPG settings, in any forum, I almost always get "whatever" rather than anything specific. Why is that?
9. The default prestige classes seem kinda underwhelming. Were they simply carried over from 3.5 rather than reworked?
10. Are daemons made from the victims or perpetuators of certain kinds of death? I just can't help but wonder who obsicidaemons could've been in past lives.
1) That's something Pharasma gets to decide, but basically, that means failing to live up to your ideals and goals in life and not being true to your soul. Whether or not you are "being true to your soul" depends on your alignment, your beliefs, your personality, and how well you adhere to those.
2) Nope. No stats. They can't and don't interact with reality other than to observe.
3) Because runelords were't really soul harvesters. The stuff Karzoug is doing in Runelords isn't harvesting souls so much as "scraping" them for tiny bits of energy... that's far too delicate and refined a job for a cacodaemon.
4) Build spells that make sense for the encounter AND make sense for the character.
5) Depends on the region. Korvosa certainly has some printing presses available, but there's also plenty of public speakers and rumormongerers.
6) Rakshasas feel that they should be worshiped by deities and have very little interest in being allies to humans, while Sorshen very much prefers the human/near human form and is kind of annoyed with creatures that have more animalistic shapes, while at the same time not enjoying the company of egotistical arrogant creatures... like rakshasas.
7) Monster roles are not interested in a monster's flavor. They are PURELY interested in number crunching and maximizing, and while a succubus is certainly more likely to take levels of bard or sorcerer or rogue than fighter or ranger... the raw numbers of adding combat classes make better raw numbers than adding a bard or rogue or the type. It's a classic case of flavor and numbers not matching... but that fortunately DOES mean you can make a succubus rogue or bard or sorcerer or whatever quite a bit higher level than you could if the class WERE a favored option. Which is actually a good thing for character design.
8) Because things like logistics and demographics are not really all that interesting to most gamers, I've found. The game is more interesting to most folks when it focuses on the action or the story, and leaves logistics and demographics as background elements that work best to support the action or story if needed.
9) They were reworked, but the design team really didn't want to make them better choices than single classing. A prestige class works best when you REALLY want to go into that role, but in Pathfinder it's not an obvious power-up on purpose.
10) Daemons personify types of death, yes. Obsicidaemons personify mass death via genocide... but that doesn't mean the souls they formed from died that way, necessarily.
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Creative Director
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Gotta say, I can't blame you at all on that one. The Stealth rules are kinda weird like that. If you're just using them to just hide, and sneak around, they're totally fine. When you try to use them for crazy hide-and-seek guerilla fighting though, the headaches can pile up quick.
Only if you let them.
I've had plenty of "crazy hide-and-seek" type encounters in my games over the last decade plus of Pathfinder & 3rd Edition, both as a GM and as a player, and it's never been a problem for me or my groups. I really think gaming style is the primary cause of the problem with Stealth, and my gaming style isn't the type that hits problems with it.
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Creative Director
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Actually as possibly the lone voice of dissent I much prefer the art with Iconics.THIS PLEASE! :)One thing that we actually have NOT done a lot of in Golarion is simply illustrate scenes, be they of architecture or environment. That's something I've been championing a change to for a long time... and it looks like we're finally drifting in that direction. Less art of iconics fighting monsters with locations in the background... more of scenes that the GM can use to say things like "THIS is the haunted castle you're approaching" or "THIS is the skyline of the city you live in."This sounds awesome. Scenes of what a city or town in Qadira or Osirion or even Taldor or Cheliax or Andoran would look like, as well as what the people on the street might be wearing for distinctive local clothing / armor, would be awesome.
I'd hardly say you're the lone voice of dissent. I quite like art with iconics too. There's room for both types though.
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Creative Director
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As for the Runelords... at this point, I'd say that all of them knew about the other planets, but I'm not ready to say whether or not they had any actual contact with the other planets. Now is not the time....Would you be able to give implications towards which planets they might have had a probability of contact with, then? I don't really need specifics, I guess. General direction is fine (e.g. the link between Castrovel and lust/fertility would indicate a Sorshen angle to me, given what Eurythnia was as well as what it became over time, but that's the only one that really "pops out").
Also, with regard to Castrovel and the lashunta, I noticed that the earlier images (of scantily-clad women, yes) provided wore much less clothing than the later examples that appeared in stuff like the Inner Sea Bestiary. Was this change in style a deliberate artistic choice, or just an accident? I kind of liked the "John Carter"/Burroughs approach to the Castrovel dress code, as semi-fan of that pulp sci-fi like Princess of Mars and so on, but the artwork (especially what appears in the Inner Sea Bestiary) does seem to be moving away from that.
Not really yet. AKA: To a certain extent, the stories I plan to tell with the runelords have, in some ways, hardly even started, and I don't want to spoil things by doing too much public stuff with them too soon and too early.
As for lashunta... some wear more clothing than others, just like humans. They tend to wear less clothing because their planet is a lot warmer... but that's not always the case. That said, with each day that passes and with Pathfinder growing more and more widespread, we ARE trying to be more and more conscious about when we depict female or male forms as sexualized images.
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Creative Director
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Does Ezren use magic to create his chiseled jaw? I can only assume he uses magic to keep up his wonderful beard.
Has he considered age-reducing spells, even if temporarily? Actually, are there any spells other than Wish that make you look and feel younger?
He uses disguise self and sovereign glue. Likely pilfered from Seoni. Or vise versa.
There's the sun orchid elixir. But no... Ezren's not the type of guy who values the youthful look.
It's also rather doubtful that Ezren would be able to secure the funds to participate in the gamble that is the sun orchid auction.
And I somehow doubt he'd be the kind to secure the services of a Witch who would have some relevant spells in her class list. I remember a WOW D20 spell called silverbeard casting which would give you the appearance of age and respect that would earn a diplomacy bonus from dwarves.
When he's 1st level, yes. When he's 20th level, no. We don't make assumptions about an iconic's alignment when they're not being directly used to illustrate a picture in an adventure.
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Creative Director
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Given your fondness for the saurian side of the street, have you heard of the famous Victorian Detective Madame Vashtra?
"Good evening. I'm a lizard woman from the dawn of time, and this is my wife."
It's usually the ending part of the sentence that makes the locals faint dead away.
Whoa... I have not.
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Creative Director
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-There are rules for gravity in both the Gamemastery Guide (the chapter on planar adventures) and the Campaign Setting book Distant Worlds. The rules are meant to achieve the same thing, yet are pretty different from one another. What would be the best way to work around this? Use Gamemastery Guide's rules for the planes, and Distant Worlds rules for other planets?
-Take a creature that can't speak, such as an intellect devourer or nightgaunt. Could it take levels in a spellcasting class, cast alter self (with Silent metamagic of course), and be able to speak normally in its new humanoid form?
For gravity (and for anything where you have options), use the rules that are more fun.
And yes, a creature that can't speak that alter selfs into a creature that can may speak normally. For an intellect devourer with spellcasting class levels, the further assumption would be that it uses its spellcasting while using body thief, then once it's out of that body it reverts to melee attacks and spell-like abilities.
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Whoa... I have not.Given your fondness for the saurian side of the street, have you heard of the famous Victorian Detective Madame Vashtra?
"Good evening. I'm a lizard woman from the dawn of time, and this is my wife."
It's usually the ending part of the sentence that makes the locals faint dead away.
I would note that although Madame Vashtra is awesome, she is a Doctor Who character, and her appearances so far have been in episodes that are more meta plot heavy than stand alone, making them more difficult to just drop into on their own...
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Oh please extrapolate on your Way of the Wicked PC.
My Way of the Wicked PC is a female demon-spawn tiefling bard named Bezlarue Arouraios. The kinda weird stat-generation method for the campaign ended up with her being unusually strong and unusually clumsy for a bard, which is fine, but it's strange having a bard with a Strength of 16 and a Dex of 10 to me.
I am always interested in weird stat-generation methods. It is something you can share?
- * -
About having a better touch AC than you regular AC, it is thanks to this rage power:
Ghost Rager (Su): While raging, the barbarian deals normal damage to incorporeal creatures even when using nonmagical weapons. She also gains a morale bonus to touch AC equal to her saving throw bonus from her superstition rage power. A barbarian must have the superstition rage power and be at least 6th level before selecting this rage power.
If I read it right, the barbarian get the touch Ac increase against all attacks when raging, not only against attacks from incorporeal creatures. I am right?
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Creative Director
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I would note that although Madame Vashtra is awesome, she is a Doctor Who character, and her appearances so far have been in episodes that are more meta plot heavy than stand alone, making them more difficult to just drop into on their own...Whoa... I have not.Given your fondness for the saurian side of the street, have you heard of the famous Victorian Detective Madame Vashtra?
"Good evening. I'm a lizard woman from the dawn of time, and this is my wife."
It's usually the ending part of the sentence that makes the locals faint dead away.
Ah; that explains why I've never heard of her, for I am not a Doctor Who fan and have never seen an entire episode of the show.
James,
What is your opinion concerning the damper blood drinker feat being an automatically evil act?
Do you have any insight into why this is evil, but vampiric touch is not? Why is it that GMs are entrusted to make judgement calls in other morality cases, but not this one?Also, is the feat creator aware that by making it a standard action, it is unusable with the dhampir's racial bite attack?
I'm actually not super familiar with the contents of that book at all... but drinking blood? I can get behind that being an evil act.
Vampiric touch isn't evil because it simply transfers life from one person to another, whereas the act of drinking blood is more taboo than simple hit point damage.
I'm not sure who wrote the feat, so I can't say. Again... this was one of the books that I didn't really have much input on or anything like that, so I don't have a lot of insight into it.
Perhaps vampiric touch doesn't seem as taboo because it's not something we've had to deal with in the real world. In game it certainly could be taboo to suck out someone's energy with magic.
But should anything one person or culture deems taboo be the basis for a "moral absolute" as Sean Reynolds says?
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Creative Director
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Oh please extrapolate on your Way of the Wicked PC.
My Way of the Wicked PC is a female demon-spawn tiefling bard named Bezlarue Arouraios. The kinda weird stat-generation method for the campaign ended up with her being unusually strong and unusually clumsy for a bard, which is fine, but it's strange having a bard with a Strength of 16 and a Dex of 10 to me.
I am always interested in weird stat-generation methods. It is something you can share?
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About having a better touch AC than you regular AC, it is thanks to this rage power:
Ghost Rager (Su): While raging, the barbarian deals normal damage to incorporeal creatures even when using nonmagical weapons. She also gains a morale bonus to touch AC equal to her saving throw bonus from her superstition rage power. A barbarian must have the superstition rage power and be at least 6th level before selecting this rage power.If I read it right, the barbarian get the touch Ac increase against all attacks when raging, not only against attacks from incorporeal creatures. I am right?
One stat is 18, one is 8, then roll 1d10+8 for the remaining stats in order.
The bonus to AC applies to anything that tries to hit her touch AC.
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Creative Director
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Perhaps vampiric touch doesn't seem as taboo because it's not something we've had to deal with in the real world. In game it certainly could be taboo to suck out someone's energy with magic.
But should anything one person or culture deems taboo be the basis for a "moral absolute" as Sean Reynolds says?
There's certainly no descriptive flavor to vampiric touch that makes it feel taboo or evil. You could make ANY spell feel evil by this method though, so that's not a defense or argument that's valid.
If you want blood-drinking to not be evil in your game, by all means let it be so. For our products, we have to make decisions on a case by case basis for the baseline of the game/for Golarion. That may not match your game style, in which case you should change things, but when we put things in print, oftentimes something is lessened by us being timid and not making hard specific decisions on things like whether or not blood drinking is evil.
In this case, it's specifically associated with the vampire's parasitaziation and consumption of living blood in an attempt to kill or transform an innocent, and therefore we decided to make the feat an evil act.
The spell "vampiric touch," frankly, could just as easily have been called something like "drain life" or "absorbing touch" or "transfrer health" or something like that, since the spell itself doesn't really have any rules crossover with any of the rules of an actual vampire. The reason it's called "vampiric touch" is because that's what it was called back in 1st edition D&D or whenever it was first introduced into the game, and we've kept its name out of a nod to tradition and respect for what's come before.
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Awesome, sounds like a lot of the molds I want will be viable. Are there any particular pieces of art that I could reference as good examples, or should I just take those various styles and mix to taste?There are elements of Roman, Japanese, Egyptian, Aztec, and Greek in Thassilonian buildings. The style wouldn't really vary between domains, since all the big buildings were built by enslaved giants.Is there any particular real world architectural style that would best match Thassilonian constructions? Would it vary between the different Runelords' domains?
I've just gotten started building some modular dungeons with molds from Hirst Arts. I'm wanting to build a Thassilonian set, and I need to decide which molds to get next!
The ones that look cool!
One thing that we actually have NOT done a lot of in Golarion is simply illustrate scenes, be they of architecture or environment. That's something I've been championing a change to for a long time... and it looks like we're finally drifting in that direction. Less art of iconics fighting monsters with locations in the background... more of scenes that the GM can use to say things like "THIS is the haunted castle you're approaching" or "THIS is the skyline of the city you live in."
I love the visual of the cities in Varisia: birthplace of legends.
We will get more of those?Awesome.
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Does Ezren use magic to create his chiseled jaw? I can only assume he uses magic to keep up his wonderful beard.
Has he considered age-reducing spells, even if temporarily? Actually, are there any spells other than Wish that make you look and feel younger?
He uses disguise self and sovereign glue. Likely pilfered from Seoni. Or vise versa.
Lies! Every wizard worth his spellbook will use prestidigitation and a good level of Knowledge (etiquette) to keep his beard in order, his hairs with the right shade of gray, his robes immaculately clean and his appearance trim.
Disguise self is a cheap shortcut.;-)
Perhaps vampiric touch doesn't seem as taboo because it's not something we've had to deal with in the real world. In game it certainly could be taboo to suck out someone's energy with magic.
But should anything one person or culture deems taboo be the basis for a "moral absolute" as Sean Reynolds says?
There's certainly no descriptive flavor to vampiric touch that makes it feel taboo or evil. You could make ANY spell feel evil by this method though, so that's not a defense or argument that's valid.
If you want blood-drinking to not be evil in your game, by all means let it be so. For our products, we have to make decisions on a case by case basis for the baseline of the game/for Golarion. That may not match your game style, in which case you should change things, but when we put things in print, oftentimes something is lessened by us being timid and not making hard specific decisions on things like whether or not blood drinking is evil.
In this case, it's specifically associated with the vampire's parasitaziation and consumption of living blood in an attempt to kill or transform an innocent, and therefore we decided to make the feat an evil act.
The spell "vampiric touch," frankly, could just as easily have been called something like "drain life" or "absorbing touch" or "transfrer health" or something like that, since the spell itself doesn't really have any rules crossover with any of the rules of an actual vampire. The reason it's called "vampiric touch" is because that's what it was called back in 1st edition D&D or whenever it was first introduced into the game, and we've kept its name out of a nod to tradition and respect for what's come before.
On the brighter side of things, the feat says that it is only evil if the victim is unwilling and intelligent. So, if your victim is cool with you sucking their blood, it isn't really that evil.
"Monster roles are not interested in a monster's flavor. They are PURELY interested in number crunching and maximizing"
1. I'm wasn't talking about game mechanics but NPC motivation. Succubi toy with people, why would one take a class that's all about killing them?
2. Say I add 7 rogue levels to a succubus (+ 3.5 CR). Would she be CR 10 or CR 11? What if I add 8 rogue levels (each level above 7 being +1 CR instead)?
"Me: When fan-statting a runelord, what sort of spell loadout should I generally avoid? I take it I shouldn't OD on whatever the school speciality is."
"Build spells that make sense for the encounter"
3. I'm a bit confused by that. Aren't all encounters with runelords final confrontations? What other kind of encounters would there be?
4. On the subject of spell loadouts, what low-level spells wouldn't be useless in a high-level fight?
"Sorshen very much prefers the human/near human form and is kind of annoyed with creatures that have more animalistic shapes"
5. So humanoid-body-with-beast-head counts as animalistic more than it does near-human then? I take it Sorshen isn't into furries (or scalies, or crawlies, etc.) then?
6. In Pathfinder #9 (p.35), you said that a rakshasas should be CR 8 instead of CR 10 since their defenses are easily circumvented and their attacks are relatively weak. Why'd they end up as CR 10 anyway?
7. For the purposes of bane weapons, would "lawful," "native," and "shapechanger" be viable subtypes of outsider or are they too broad?
8. How would evil-aligned people directly fight rakshasas? Manipulating good-aligned people may not be always an option (even if it would make an interesting bit of intrigue for an AP).
9. Would you ever consider an AP where the PCs find out they were doing the main villain's dirty work all along?
10. What two kinds of AP wouldn't you make?
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Creative Director
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"Monster roles are not interested in a monster's flavor. They are PURELY interested in number crunching and maximizing"
1. I'm wasn't talking about game mechanics but NPC motivation. Succubi toy with people, why would one take a class that's all about killing them?
2. Say I add 7 rogue levels to a succubus (+ 3.5 CR). Would she be CR 10 or CR 11? What if I add 8 rogue levels (each level above 7 being +1 CR instead)?
"Me: When fan-statting a runelord, what sort of spell loadout should I generally avoid? I take it I shouldn't OD on whatever the school speciality is."
"Build spells that make sense for the encounter"
3. I'm a bit confused by that. Aren't all encounters with runelords final confrontations? What other kind of encounters would there be?
4. On the subject of spell loadouts, what low-level spells wouldn't be useless in a high-level fight?
"Sorshen very much prefers the human/near human form and is kind of annoyed with creatures that have more animalistic shapes"
5. So humanoid-body-with-beast-head counts as animalistic more than it does near-human then? I take it Sorshen isn't into furries (or scalies, or crawlies, etc.) then?
6. In Pathfinder #9 (p.35), you said that a rakshasas should be CR 8 instead of CR 10 since their defenses are easily circumvented and their attacks are relatively weak. Why'd they end up as CR 10 anyway?
7. For the purposes of bane weapons, would "lawful," "native," and "shapechanger" be viable subtypes of outsider or are they too broad?
8. How would evil-aligned people directly fight rakshasas? Manipulating good-aligned people may not be always an option (even if it would make an interesting bit of intrigue for an AP).
9. Would you ever consider an AP where the PCs find out they were doing the main villain's dirty work all along?
10. What two kinds of AP wouldn't you make?
1) There are as many reasons why a succubus would take a combat class as there are storylines one could come up with for such a class. For example, a succubus who decided to play a sort of evil Joan of Arc role could take levels of fighter. Or one that's a bounty hunter might take levels of ranger. Both of those characters would be interesting foes.
2) A succubus rogue 7 would be CR 11. A succubus rogue 8 would be CR 12.
3) We've only ever done up one encounter with a runelord, so I'm not ready to say that's the only way they could be used.
4) That's certainly a matter that could be debated for hours, with the parameters of the debate changing depending upon the party facing the foe. Personally, I prefer to focus on the tougher spells for higher level spellcasters—those are the ones they'll likely be casting more often. Giving a wizard a bunch of magic missile spells as his 1st level spells is not a terrible idea.
5) Nope.
6) They ended up as CR 10 because when we built the Bestiary, we did our best to not change ANY CR scores. There's only a few cases where we did change those scores; the kraken comes to mind. We could have either rebuilt the rakshasa as a proper CR 10 foe (like we did), or we could have chosen to retain its 3rd edition stats and assign a lower CR... but we chose the former because there's already plenty of lower CR foes in the game.
7) Those sound fine to me.
8) Charmed/dominated good alligned minions. Conjuration magic that bypasses SR. Magic with a really good SR check. Weapon attacks that do LOTS of damage on a hit so that the DR doesn't matter in the long run. Alchemists.
9) No.
10) Ones where you get to the end and it's revealed that you as the players were misled dupes of the enemy. And ones that don't have any roleplaying elements.
Name three to five pairs of Iconics that would be likely to hook up
And three to five pairs that would be very unlikely to.
I'm interested in pitting my PCs against the Oliphaunt of Jandelay at some point after defeating Karzoug and it's looking like this event will probably happen before mythic rules come out, and therefore before you can officially stat him up. So a few questions:
1) In your ideal rules scenario, just how big is it in terms of feet tall and maybe approximate weight as well?
2) I think we've only seen its head so far. I've always imagined the rest of it as basically being a gigantic minotaur. Is that about right? If not, could you reveal what rest of it looks like?
3) Who/what/where is Jandelay?
4) When it comes back, what would that be like?
5) Dismissing it the first time resulted in the death of legions. Were these legions in any way helping in the dismissal or were there only a select few (i.e. runelords) actually effective against the beast?
6) Since I know you can't give stats yet, any tips on putting together a stat block? I know you recommended about CR 33 which works nicely. It's been months since then so I figure it's worth a shot to see if you have any more recommendations.
7) I've thought about giving parts of his body their own reserves of HP and having different effects happen to him based on the "defeat" of those parts. Regardless of the direction the Oliphaunt goes or mythic rules as a whole, do you think this could work in Pathfinder or is this kind of lame?
Not a question, but when the archer in my group touched the Runeforge liquid, one of the brief glimpses of the future he received was of him fighting the Oliphaunt. Just enough to get them concerned, but not enough to get them to stop focusing on Runeforge. You guys certainly make GMing fun.
Are any 3.5 APs and modules going to be remade/rereleased for pathfinder other than RotRL?
Or have there been any that have been treated thusly already?
I only know PF since the PFRPG beta so I don't really have a good overview of what came before and what came after, all I know is that I find a lot of interesting APs and Modules in the local game store that don't have the PFRPG logo on them. (and I honestly don't want to convert them myself)
Hey James, just a quick question for you.
The Master Spy prestige class has the Shift Alignment ability, which allows the spy to have spells and magical items treat him as if he had a different alignment. Do you think that this ability should provide a defense against supernatural abilities such as Smite Evil as well?
I know that as written it does not, but it just seems odd to me that this 'gap' in the alignment shift exists. Why would it provide immunity to Holy Word, but not Smite Evil?
I hope that this isn't the type of rule question that you're avoiding at the moment :)
Judging by your picture, you're a tyrannosaurus rex. Do you find flying inconvenient? Do you have to buy out a whole row of seats? Or do they make you ride in a big kennel in the baggage compartment? These are questions that need answers.
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Creative Director
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Can you please give your view of the feat
Shapshifting hunter:
Prerequisite: Favored enemy class feature, wild shape class feature.
Benefit: Your levels of druid stack with your ranger levels for determining when you select your next favored enemy. Also, your ranger levels stack with your druid levels in determining the number of times per day you can use your wild shape class feature, up to a maximum of eight times per day.Does it give full favored enemy (the bonuses increases) or does it only give more favored enemies but at a fixed bonus?
It's when you select a favored enemy that the bonus increases, so yes, it does give full favored enemy bonuses.
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Creative Director
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10) Ones where you get to the end and it's revealed that you as the players were misled dupes of the enemy. And ones that don't have any roleplaying elements.You know - I was kinda getting that vibe from Sheila Heidmarsh as I was reading through The Shattered Star. Haven't read part 6 yet but when I read the Concluding the Adventure bit for Part 5 where it mentioned
** spoiler omitted **
I did get the impression that Sheila knew that would happen and had the PCs collecting the shards expressly for that purpose. And if my suspicions do turn out to be right then don't spoil it for me!
I don't know if it's up your alley, but have you taken a look at Dreadball at all?
Nope; no one (Sheila included) knows or even suspects that is gonna happen. Their goal in rebuilding the star is to prepare Varisia for future conflicts with the Runelords.
Read into that what you may.
Haven't heard of Dreadball until now... it is, in fact, not really up my alley though.
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Creative Director
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Are any 3.5 APs and modules going to be remade/rereleased for pathfinder other than RotRL?
Or have there been any that have been treated thusly already?I only know PF since the PFRPG beta so I don't really have a good overview of what came before and what came after, all I know is that I find a lot of interesting APs and Modules in the local game store that don't have the PFRPG logo on them. (and I honestly don't want to convert them myself)
No plans to do so at this point. We revised and re-released Rise of the Runelords because it was a celebration of the 5th anniversary of Pathfinder and the 10th anniversary of Paizo, and because most of the original runelords adventures were sold out at the time. We might do something else in 5 years for the 10th anniversary of Pathfinder. Who knows? A lot can happen and develop in 5 years in this industry.
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Creative Director
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I'm interested in pitting my PCs against the Oliphaunt of Jandelay at some point after defeating Karzoug and it's looking like this event will probably happen before mythic rules come out, and therefore before you can officially stat him up. So a few questions:
1) In your ideal rules scenario, just how big is it in terms of feet tall and maybe approximate weight as well?
2) I think we've only seen its head so far. I've always imagined the rest of it as basically being a gigantic minotaur. Is that about right? If not, could you reveal what rest of it looks like?
3) Who/what/where is Jandelay?
4) When it comes back, what would that be like?
5) Dismissing it the first time resulted in the death of legions. Were these legions in any way helping in the dismissal or were there only a select few (i.e. runelords) actually effective against the beast?
6) Since I know you can't give stats yet, any tips on putting together a stat block? I know you recommended about CR 33 which works nicely. It's been months since then so I figure it's worth a shot to see if you have any more recommendations.
7) I've thought about giving parts of his body their own reserves of HP and having different effects happen to him based on the "defeat" of those parts. Regardless of the direction the Oliphaunt goes or mythic rules as a whole, do you think this could work in Pathfinder or is this kind of lame?
Not a question, but when the archer in my group touched the Runeforge liquid, one of the brief glimpses of the future he received was of him fighting the Oliphaunt. Just enough to get them concerned, but not enough to get them to stop focusing on Runeforge. You guys certainly make GMing fun.
1) Godzilla sized or larger. Hundreds of feet tall.
2) It's not a gigantic minotaur. It's closest analogue would be an immense elephant... but even that's not 100% spot on.
3) Unrevealed.
4) Apocalyptic, at first on a smaller scale, but possibly extending to regional.
5) Unrevealed.
6) At this point, given what we know now about mythic rules... I'm guessing it'll be CR 29 or CR 30.
7) Not a fan of locational hit points.
Sorry I can't give out more info at this point, but I suspect we WILL have more to say about this topic by the end of the year.
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Creative Director
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Hey James, just a quick question for you.
The Master Spy prestige class has the Shift Alignment ability, which allows the spy to have spells and magical items treat him as if he had a different alignment. Do you think that this ability should provide a defense against supernatural abilities such as Smite Evil as well?
I know that as written it does not, but it just seems odd to me that this 'gap' in the alignment shift exists. Why would it provide immunity to Holy Word, but not Smite Evil?
I hope that this isn't the type of rule question that you're avoiding at the moment :)
First off... smite evil is way way way powerful. I think it's probably a bit TOO powerful. As a result, there should be some defense type thing against it.
Now, first off, being able to hide your alignment DOES protect against smite evil, since most things that smite tend to hold back the smite until they're sure it'll work since it's a limited resource. So if you simply don't detect as evil, that's often all the protection you need.
But yes, if something provides protection against a high level spell like holy word, it should also protect against smite evil, I think.
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Creative Director
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Judging by your picture, you're a tyrannosaurus rex. Do you find flying inconvenient? Do you have to buy out a whole row of seats? Or do they make you ride in a big kennel in the baggage compartment? These are questions that need answers.
Flying is for humans. I just step over the things you little critters have to fly over.
Oliphaunt info.
Thanks! I knew I was treading on unrevealed ground so I appreciate even the smallest bit of info. And duly noted on the separate HP pools for body parts. I don't want to experiment with something that doesn't have a good chance of being awesome.
One last question. What do you think of campaigns that take a break and then resume later? Do players usually not want to go back? While I'm sure I could come up with some neat stuff, all the hints I'm seeing about Oliphaunt and more info about Runelords and their return is making me want to take a break after Karzoug. (I also can't wait to run Skull & Shackles!)
---URGENT---
Magus Class:
the magus count half his levels as a fighter class.
can i asume that the other half count as a wizard for take feats too?i want to buy Spell Mastery Feat but my Gm told me "just for wiz"
spell focus, the same thing, etc.That's a question your GM gets to answer. If he says something is just for wizards, then it's just for wizards.
That said... the magus was designed long after the Spell Mastery feat, and since magi prepare and cast spells in the same way as a wizard (down to and including the spellbook), then it's not an unusual house rule to say that Spell Mastery would work for magi as well...
But your GM gets to make that call for your game, not me.
By the same reasoning would you say that a Witch could take Spell Mastery?
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Creative Director
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Hi James,
In many stories seemingly low level characters stumble upon high-powered magic items. How would you handle such a story in a game and still keep up a reasonable balance?
By incorporating the item into the story and designing the story to account for the item's presence.
Note that some powerful magic items take care of themselves. For example, in Serpent's Skull...
1) It's part of a big stash of treasure, and actually getting things that are more valuable than you expect helps to make treasure feel like treasure.
2) An adventure path is strengthened if the same PCs play through the whole thing, and giving out some resurrection-type magic early helps fight against bad luck.
Similarly, back in Red Hand of Doom, I put a staff of life into the start of the adventure. That's a super expensive item to give out to 6th level characters... but the adventure itself is on a tight timeline, so the addition of something that can heal or raise folks from the dead a few times is made up for the fact that there's not as much time to rest and recover in the adventure's story.
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Creative Director
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Oliphaunt info.Thanks! I knew I was treading on unrevealed ground so I appreciate even the smallest bit of info. And duly noted on the separate HP pools for body parts. I don't want to experiment with something that doesn't have a good chance of being awesome.
One last question. What do you think of campaigns that take a break and then resume later? Do players usually not want to go back? While I'm sure I could come up with some neat stuff, all the hints I'm seeing about Oliphaunt and more info about Runelords and their return is making me want to take a break after Karzoug. (I also can't wait to run Skull & Shackles!)
As long as the campaign breaks at a point where the campaign's story is at a break... that's probably okay. Breaking in the middle of an adventure where folks need to remember clues and the like is bad... you spend lots of time recapping each session, and worse, it becomes harder and harder to get everyone back on schedule.
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Creative Director
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By the same reasoning would you say that a Witch could take Spell Mastery?---URGENT---
Magus Class:
the magus count half his levels as a fighter class.
can i asume that the other half count as a wizard for take feats too?i want to buy Spell Mastery Feat but my Gm told me "just for wiz"
spell focus, the same thing, etc.That's a question your GM gets to answer. If he says something is just for wizards, then it's just for wizards.
That said... the magus was designed long after the Spell Mastery feat, and since magi prepare and cast spells in the same way as a wizard (down to and including the spellbook), then it's not an unusual house rule to say that Spell Mastery would work for magi as well...
But your GM gets to make that call for your game, not me.
If you let a magus take the feat, you should let a witch take it. My preference is to not let either; keep it a wizard feat. Magi and witches already have plenty of toys.
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Creative Director
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In most cases, wizards charge a fee for the privilege of copying spells from their spellbooks. This fee is usually equal to half the cost to write the spell into a spellbook (see Writing a New Spell into a Spellbook). Rare and unique spells might cost significantly more.This entry in the CRB seems to indicate the fair market price for getting access to a fellow wizards spellbook and copying down some spells.
Can you tell me what you think the word "usually" means? Does that mean that sometimes a wizard might charge more or less? Seems to me that depending on the NPC's attitude it could be more or less.
The word "usually" means that sometimes some wizards want more money.
Mr. Jacobs,
You are the Creative Director of Paizo. Could you please describe your job function as according to the rules stipulated in the "Up-Goer Five Challenge?"
Thank you!