So...what stuff did you guys finish?James Jacobs as not answeared any question in almost 24 hours....Where is he?I can field this one! He's been busy today. We finished a bunch of stuff today.
I'm betting it was Pathfinder stuff!
Based on some of the last stuff he said, probably Ultimate Campaign is one of the things.
Paizo: You are aware that 10th of February marks the beginning of Chinese New Year?
*ducks for cover*
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What is the most heartwarming moment you remember from a game you either played in or GM-ed?
While we are at Succubi already; something about a certain unique Succubus caught my attention.
You stated that Shamira grants the Subdomains of Demon, Leadership, Lust... and Love, the latter being something... extremely uncommon for a Demon Lord (I even think I remember reading Love being among the Subdomains no Demon Lord grants).
Is there any deeper significance to this? Is the inclusion of this subdomain a hint at possible redemption, given the rumors about Shamira's origins? Or was it just that all other available subdomains didn't fit at all, and I am just over-analyzing things?
There is indeed deeper significance to that. Demons can love. Demons can be redeemed. And Love can be used for evil or chaotic purposes.
Often, when we don't have a lot of room to talk about a deity, a GREAT way to get across some of that deity's unique personality features is to give them a domain or subdomain that seems strange or unexpected. This is one such case.
Some day, more about that case will be explored.
:)
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Not sure if this has been asked already, but in PFRPG Bestiary 3, Nephilim - despite having Intelligence, and no notation about being silent or otherwise incapable of speech - they have no languages listed. Why is this? How do they communicate? I am under the impression that they were originally included in Legacy of Fire AP, yes? Welcoming spoilers, what is their placement in that story & the setting in general?
Do spellcasting members of the Thrune family tend to being wizards or sorcerers? Which was the first Abrogail?
Creative Director
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Hey James....some random questions...
1) Who do you think is the most dangerous person on Golarion at this moment?
2) What other RPGs have you played?
3) How much are devils used in the Cheliax military?
4) Will there ever be a adventure path centered around the Sun Orcid Elixir auction? Or perhaps a high level module?
5) Is there a god or goddess that you wished you included in Golarion?
6) I liked the way you included racial pantheons in Golarion...but kept them low key. Are we going to see them eventualy explored more?
1) I can't reveal that at this moment, since that'd spoil an adventure path/big event I've been waiting for the right time to start for a long time.
2) A lot. I'm sure I'll forget some, but I've played Call of Cthulhu, Star Frontiers, Gama World, D&D (every edition back to and including the blue book), Alternity, Star Wars d20, Call of Cthulhu d20, Beyond the Supernatural, Battletech/Mechwarrior, TMNT, Marvel Superheroes, Champions, Fantasy Hero, Warhammer FRP, Dungeon Crawl Classics, GURPS, Shadowrun, Paranoia, Traveler, and many unpublished variants of the d20 system (my favorite of which is, of course, Unspeakable Futures).
3) Enough to confuse non Chelaxians (and even some Chelaxians) into thinking that the Chelish army worship devils. They just use them as tools. Surely that's it.
4) It's a great topic for both. Maybe some day.
5) Pretty much all the ones I wanted to include are in there. If one pops up that I decide needs to be in there, there's plenty of ways to introduce new deities.
6) On an individual deity basis now and then, but no plans at this point to bulk them out or talk more about them as pantheons anytime soon.
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I just happened to be browsing the Steve Jackson Games website, and I found The World of Munchkin news page. One tidbit grabbed my attention:
Work proceeds on Munchkin Pathfinder. Golarion is a rich setting and we are taking the time to make sure we're doing it justice. It's going slower than we had expected, but Paizo has been a huge help the whole way (special shoutout to James Jacobs for patiently answering all my stupid questions).I'm obviously not taking the word "stupid" seriously. You don't become the Munchkin brand manager by being a fantasy-gaming-world ignoramus. But I can't help but wonder. What WERE some of those questions?
(And if we don't get an authoritative answer, let the groundless speculation begin!)
He's just being self-deprecating. They're questions like "what are good monsters to include?" or "what are some famous types of potions?" or the like. Typical questions a responsible designer would ask as he or she is building a product based on another company's IP is all.
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1) What's the difference between the Eternals and the Eldest? I could swear I've seen them referred to the same way in terms of powerful First-world entities before.
2) I know insight bonuses to AC are lost when the target is flat-footed, but what about insight bonuses to saves or skill checks when flat-footed, like with an Oracle's natural divination ability?
3) Say the PCs are going exploring and run across an obstacle they want to remove. If removing this obstacle in an in-delicate way, or even just removing it period, would trigger an event(s) that could harm them like a trap, should it be considered a trap for puposes of spells and abilities and such? I'm just wondering if the major criteria to something being a trap is that such a challenge to the party was intentionally setup by an antagonistic force and not a haphazard result of nature doing it's thing.
4) For semi-divine beings, what are the CR/power levels you typically rate things in? For example, just how powerful should an average demi-god be? There's lots of demi-god examples people from Earth mythology, like Hercules, who would only rate as powerful, maybe mythic, heroes but not super-high CR invulnerable powerhouses.
5) When your INT modifier goes up due to leveling or inherent bonuses, are you supposed to gain an extra language like you did in 3.X?
6) Do you think it makes sense to say the Brew Potion feat should allow the creation of oils, elixirs, and other such wondrous items as well? Wondering what was the logic behind making those wondrous only.
7) Two of my players in our next campaign want to be Lashunta and one of those two wants to be a blade-bound magus. Is it incredibly mean of me to plan... (SPOILER)
1) The Eldest are the demigods of the First World. I'm not sure we've ever called them "The Eternals" in print... that may have been a placeholder name for them back in the day and it might have been mentioned on these boards years ago... but if it DID get into print, let me know. It's 99.999964% likely to be an error, but in context there's always a slight chance it's not.
2) Where does it say insight bonuses are lost when someone's flat footed? In any case, since there's not a "flat footed" equivalent for anything else, then no, you don't lose the bonus to things like saves or the like.
3) I would absolutely give them Perception checks or SOME sort of check to notice the danger they're creating before springing it on them. That way, when you DO make the ceiling fall down they can't say "You cheated!" because you DID let them roll a Perception or Knowledge (engineering) or whatever check to try to warn them.
4) Now that we have Mythic rules in the works, I can answer that question better. Something like a nascent demon lord or infernal duke would be in the CR 21–25 range. The CR 26–30 range would be for actual demigods, like demon lords or the Horsemen of the Apocalypse or Achaekek. Above CR 30, there currently IS no CR. That's the upper limit. It's beyond that limit that true deities reside, in a realm where stat blocks don't exist. Someone like Hercules would be a mythic fighter. He could be anything from CR 1 on up, depending on when in his hero career you ask; Hercules is a great example of a mythic adventurer, in other words, whose CR increases as he gains levels.
5) Yes.
6) Oils are the same as potions, only they're applied externally. Elixirs and the like are better as wondrous items because there's no limit as to what level or type of spell you can make them from. Potions actually have a pretty narrow list of spells that are legal. They're wondrous items because they break the potion rules.
7) It's only mean if the player doesn't like it, and I don't know the player, so I can't say.
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1. Going forward, where do you think we will likely see stats for Mythic creatures? APs (Which I assume is yes since Reign of Winter has Baba Yaga), Campaign setting? Special Mythic Bestiaries?
2. What is the likelihood that future hardcover bestiaries (assuming that we get future bestiaries) would include mythic monsters. Or will mythic creatures be kept completely separate from regular monsters?
1) You'll see stats for Mythic creatures all over the place as the need to use the Mythic rules pops up. Note that you'll also see us sometimes do creatures of CRs up to 30 as well, although not all CR 25+ creatures will technically be mythic.
2) The likelihood is 100%, assuming we ever do another bestiary.
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James Jacobs,
I'm very excited that Ultimate Campaign is coming out soon. I wasn't sure of this but will it include guidelines to world creation? If not, has the idea been considered for the future?
Oh! And I'm super excited about Reign of Winter AP and (if you could provide the name for this) Worldwound AP but when the heck is the Numeria and Realm of the Mammoth Lords AP coming out?! I want giant robot scorpions fighting dinosaurs!!! :P
No; Ultimate Campaign has nothing about world creation. That topic was covered in Gamemastery Guide. Ultimate Campaign is all in-world stuff; the things your PCs do between adventures. Stuff like building nations, doing mass combat, building backgrounds, retraining abilities, establishing and running a business/guild/cult/etc. and so on.
The Worldwound Adventure Path is called "Wrath of the Righteous."
We haven't announced the Adventure Paths beyond that one yet.
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Creative Director
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1) I'm actually pretty intrigued about your "worst-demon" answer. Would the creature in question happen to have had a super-specific purpose that made the thing irrelevant in a cosmology with no Blood War? And yes, I understand if your answer is along the lines of "I'm not answering that."
2) Lilitus were pretty neat; when my 3E planescape party met one, I described as looking like a WoW draenei with four tails and wings. Are the lilitu WotC's property?
3) Why did Malcanthet's Radiant Sisters have halos? The picture of the lilitu with a halo from the Malcanthet article was neat, regardless.
4) As a chaotic neutral deity, does Calistria employ both azatas and demons in her service? Does she employ significant numbers of either?
5) Would "I'd like a name I can reliably contact you by and a lock of hair [or its equivalent]" be a somewhat reasonable request for a planar binding spell? I have a notion of my good-aligned conjurer wizard initially using the binding spells to make a sort of "contacts list" so that she can later scry outsiders and find out if they're available for summoning.
6) In that vein, if said good-aligned conjurer brought in a good-aligned outsider with a planar binding, promptly broke the summoning circle, apologized for the rudeness of the summoning method, and asked said outsider to sit down with her for tea if it has the time, would she have reasonably good odds of having a good-faith negotiation with said good-aligned outsider?
1) Yup, not answering that, on the off chance that the creator of the demons in question is reading this. Not interested in badmouthing fellow game designers in public. Even if they don't do work for Paizo these days.
2) The name "lilitu" is from mythology. But the version of them that I designed are indeed WotC property. There will be a sort of Pathfinder version of the lilitu in the Worldwound book, a CR 13 demon called a lillu. I was tempted for a bit (and still am now and then) to call this CR 13 demon a lilitu, but I'd rather not do that so that GMs who DO like the WotC lilitu can then use them still in their home games without being confused as to which one is the "better" one.
3) Because halos on demons is blasphemously sexy.
4) Yes; she probably employes more azatas than demons, but she does use demons now and then. Particularly succubi. Never incubi.
5) That's pretty non-reasonable. I would require the asker to make a pretty good Diplomacy or Intimidate check or to pay a lot to get something like that.
6) That would also depend on the result of a skill check and the temperament of the conjured creature.
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Creative Director
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James Jacobs as not answeared any question in almost 24 hours....Where is he?
My Friday the 31st went like this:
10:00 AM—Wake up and get ready for the day.
10:20 AM—Get into the car and drive to a Saturn-approved dealership in order to get a shift cable that's part of a recall for my car replaced, and hopefully get my remote key entry replaced as well since the previous fob broke.
11:00 AM—Arrive at dealership. Get a coffee, settle into the waiting room to wait for the repairs with my iPad and Baldur's Gate.
1:00 PM—Mechanic admits to me that they can't figure out how to program the remote for my car without doing an all day, $200 dollar job. I tell them thanks and to stop trying.
1:30 PM—I get back to Paizo, having stopped at Pomegranate to get a coffee and sandwich. Answer a few e-mails, help resolve a last-minute crisis with "Ultimate Campaign," and do approvals for the FIVE products we ended up shipping out that day.
2:15 PM—Head up to Sarah's office to pick out 90 new pieces of art for a project that we'd thought had all its art picked out, but turns out it had 90 more new art requirements to go.
7:00 PM—Finally finish the art meeting (which was periodically interrupted for both of us as we stopped to approve various books being sent to the printer). Finally head downstairs and finish writing up some script notes and feedback on a comic book script Erik wanted me to look over.
7:30 PM—Head out, intending to head home, but Wes calls a few seconds later to find out if I want to go out with some folks for drinks and dinner to celebrate shipping 5 products.
8:00 PM—After a few false starts at one place that had closed (DAMNIT!) and one that had a too-long wait, we end up at a new place we've never been to—a Cajun restaurant. They had lambic on tap, so the fact that the food itself was mediocre to okay was less annoying than it normally would have been.
9:30 PM—Go to Wes's place to play some video games, then watch the Birdemic rifftrax. Wow. That movie. One of the WORST ever. Unbelievably bad in places. Most places.
Midnight—Walk back home, read some of "Nightworld," then fall asleep with about 12 pages to go.
Pack a few hours of sleep on either side of that pretty hectic schedule, and there ya go!
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Creative Director
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So...what stuff did you guys finish?James Jacobs as not answeared any question in almost 24 hours....Where is he?I can field this one! He's been busy today. We finished a bunch of stuff today.
A flip mat, Ultimate Campaign, Pathfinder #69, We Be Goblins Too!, and a pawn set. I think. It was pretty crazy.
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Creative Director
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Not sure if this has been asked already, but in PFRPG Bestiary 3, Nephilim - despite having Intelligence, and no notation about being silent or otherwise incapable of speech - they have no languages listed. Why is this? How do they communicate? I am under the impression that they were originally included in Legacy of Fire AP, yes? Welcoming spoilers, what is their placement in that story & the setting in general?
That's an error.
They should speak Common, Celestial, Abyssal, and Infernal, probably. Or something along those lines.
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Creative Director
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Do spellcasting members of the Thrune family tend to being wizards or sorcerers? Which was the first Abrogail?
It's a pretty even split, with the leader types preferring sorcery and the behind-the-scenes types preferring wizardry. Not sure about the first Abrogail, or in fact if she was a spellcaster at all.
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A couple of questions about monsters and the OGL since I'm still very ignorant about OGL. I'm curious because I am interested in using the soucouyant (from Caribbean folklore) for an adventure, but I recently found out there is a version in the Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Isle of the Shackles.
If you create a monster from mythology that already exists in a book (say, Green Ronin's Book of Fiends or Frog God's Tome of Horrors Complete), but it's fairly different from their version. Would you have to credit that book in Section 15 of the OGL?
Also, are the monsters in Paizo adventure paths and Campaign Setting books OGL? Could a 3PP use a creature from either of those, provided it's not tied to Golarion?
And finally, if a 3PP makes a monster from mythology that is in one of the Campaign Setting books but different mechanics-wise, would they still have to credit the book?
Thanks for any help.
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settle into the waiting room... with my iPad and Baldur's Gate.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Whoa. Hold up. Are you telling me that I can play Baldur's Gate on iPad? If you are, this is possibly the greatest news I've heard all week.
"Pretty much all societies have scummy brothels somewhere in their borders."
I'm just wanting to know how much of that scumminess was due to Sorshen, given that she wouldn't balk at kidnapping teenagers.
1. Pathfinder #1 (p.74) says that Eurythnia was "counting on spices" for it's economy, but Pathfinder #66 (p.73) says that Eurythnia was importing spices instead. Is this a change or an oversight?
2. What was Sorshen doing before she left with Xin?
3. At what point did Xin disciples decide to eventually betray him?
4. Did Sorshen make any use of skymetal? I'm guessing not since her staff is "only" made of mithral.
5. Besides immortality, what sorts of powers would Sorshen share with vampires? Bonus stats? Bonus feats? Other?
6. What were the lusts of the other runelords that Sorshen manipulated?
7. What would you consider Sorshen's most vile traits (besides being a repost and possibly a food snob)? What are her most redeeming?
8. Will Sorshen's AP be just a clone hunt? A series of dungeon crawls is fine for the classic feel but our favorite runelord deserves more, don't you think?
9. What would Sorshen do with Korvosa's big five religions?
10. Besides Pathfinder #62 and #66, where else in Shattered Star does Sorshen get a mention?
He's just being self-deprecating. They're questions like "what are good monsters to include?" or "what are some famous types of potions?" or the like.
Thanks for the response! Yeah, I figured about the self-deprecating part... although, from those example questions you cited, I'm guessing all he meant by "stupid" was that he theoretically could have figured out answers himself, but getting them directly from the creative director of Paizo both saved him time and gave him more reliable information.
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Creative Director
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But aren't leap days in Golarion every 8 years instead of every 4 years? Wouldn't that end up changing putting everything in Golarion back 1 day every 8 years?
If that distresses you, switch it over to every 4 years. I honestly wish that's what I'd done in the book in retrospect.
Does this wish mean there is no intentional temporal coincidence between the year 1 AR in Golarion and the year 1 of the Chinese calendar on Earth? If the days on Earth and Golarion are of equal length, the duration of 4713 Golarion years (averaging 365.125 days each) is extremely close to the duration of 4711 Earth years (averaging ca. 365.25 days each). And next week the Chinese Year 4711 of the Water Snake begins, in the continuous numbering used by Chinese Americans, according to Wikipedia.
Correct.
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Creative Director
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Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Whoa. Hold up. Are you telling me that I can play Baldur's Gate on iPad? If you are, this is possibly the greatest news I've heard all week.settle into the waiting room... with my iPad and Baldur's Gate.
Yup; it's been recently released for the PC and for the iPad. Releases for Mac and android are coming soon.
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Creative Director
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A couple of questions about monsters and the OGL since I'm still very ignorant about OGL. I'm curious because I am interested in using the soucouyant (from Caribbean folklore) for an adventure, but I recently found out there is a version in the Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Isle of the Shackles.
If you create a monster from mythology that already exists in a book (say, Green Ronin's Book of Fiends or Frog God's Tome of Horrors Complete), but it's fairly different from their version. Would you have to credit that book in Section 15 of the OGL?
Also, are the monsters in Paizo adventure paths and Campaign Setting books OGL? Could a 3PP use a creature from either of those, provided it's not tied to Golarion?
And finally, if a 3PP makes a monster from mythology that is in one of the Campaign Setting books but different mechanics-wise, would they still have to credit the book?
Thanks for any help.
What's covered by the OGL is the monster's stats. If you want to create your own version of the soucouyant, you can do so without citing Isles of the Shackles, but you can't use any of the rules or text we built to support our version. Since our version and a theoretical new version comes from the same mythological source, they'll have similarities, but they won't be the same.
Almost all of the monster stats we produce for Pathifnder are open content, though. There's been only a few we have not put into open content; the Deep Crow, the courel, and a few of the Lovecraftian adaptations from Pathfinder #46; these monsters we got special permission to stat up, and that permission did not include permission to make them open content. What is and isn't open content in a particular Pathfinder product is listed on each product's legal text at the start.
If a 3PP makes their own version of a mythological monster from a Campaign Setting book but has different mechanics... they don't have to credit that book, but that's kind of not the spirit of the open gaming movement, where it's more appropriate to build NEW content rather than duplicate efforts on existing content if that content is already open and otherwise works.
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Creative Director
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1. Pathfinder #1 (p.74) says that Eurythnia was "counting on spices" for it's economy, but Pathfinder #66 (p.73) says that Eurythnia was importing spices instead. Is this a change or an oversight?
2. What was Sorshen doing before she left with Xin?
3. At what point did Xin disciples decide to eventually betray him?
4. Did Sorshen make any use of skymetal? I'm guessing not since her staff is "only" made of mithral.
5. Besides immortality, what sorts of powers would Sorshen share with vampires? Bonus stats? Bonus feats? Other?
6. What were the lusts of the other runelords that Sorshen manipulated?
7. What would you consider Sorshen's most vile traits (besides being a repost and possibly a food snob)? What are her most redeeming?
8. Will Sorshen's AP be just a clone hunt? A series of dungeon crawls is fine for the classic feel but our favorite runelord deserves more, don't you think?
9. What would Sorshen do with Korvosa's big five religions?
10. Besides Pathfinder #62 and #66, where else in Shattered Star does Sorshen get a mention?
1) Pathfinder #1 has a lot of errors in it. We were making a lot of stuff up there. For Thassilon, there are more accurate and better sources to check today than this. Pathfinder #66 is correct, in this case.
2) Unrevealed.
3) We talk about some of that in Pathfinder #66, but keep it pretty obscure for the moment. I'll have more to say about that some day.
4) Yes, but not to the extent that Xin did.
5) Dunno till I stat her up. Probably not a lot, though; she's not a vampire.
6) Physical lusts. She seduced a lot of them.
7) She was, at times, essentially a rapist. Hard to come up with redeeming traits for someone like that.
8) Who said there'd be a Sorshen Adventure Path? I sure didn't. Whatever happens next with the runelords... I suspect it'll probably be one of the biggest things we've done for or to Golarion, in any event.
9) Suppress them and/or excise them.
10) I don't remember exact details. I suspect that she got a name drop in #3 and #5. Dunno. It's been many months since I've had my head in Shattered Star to that extent.
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1. Pathfinder #1 (p.74) says that Eurythnia was "counting on spices" for it's economy, but Pathfinder #66 (p.73) says that Eurythnia was importing spices instead. Is this a change or an oversight?
1) Pathfinder #1 has a lot of errors in it. We were making a lot of stuff up there. For Thassilon, there are more accurate and better sources to check today than this. Pathfinder #66 is correct, in this case.
Before reading your reply my idea was a paragon with the Netherlands in the XVII century or Venice in earlier times. Their economy was based (together with other things) on the sales of spices, but they weren't producers (at least in their mainland) but instead importers and distributors.
It is possible that Eurythnia was doing the same thing? Importing spices from all around the world (and maybe even beyond) and then selling them to the other Thassalonic realms?
- * -
On a somewhat related note, there are strange spices produced in the abyss? or in Elysium?
For some reason I see spices more like a product from a chaotic land than from a lawful land. Maybe because I see lawful people as a bit more boring. A bit of chaos add spice in your life (as long as it is the right dose, too much can ruin it).
How do you "redeem" someone in a game/campaign. I'm not talking about a PC. If Saranrae is the goddess of Redemption (among other things), how do you redeem a villain? Is there a mechanic to use? My homebrew includes a bleeding hearted liberal/monk devout of Saranrae, so it's starting to come up. Thanks Lord James of Jacobs.
6) Do you think it makes sense to say the Brew Potion feat should allow the creation of oils, elixirs, and other such wondrous items as well? Wondering what was the logic behind making those wondrous only.6) Oils are the same as potions, only they're applied externally. Elixirs and the like are better as wondrous items because there's no limit as to what level or type of spell you can make them from. Potions actually have a pretty narrow list of spells that are legal. They're wondrous items because they break the potion rules.
Maybe this has been discussed elsewhere, but if you can use Craft Wondrous Item to make elixers that are not subject to potion limitations isn't Brew Potion an incredibly suboptimal choice?
Hey James, Reading AP #66's article on the Rune lords and I have a question.
Some the Relic have a listed souce I don't recognize. What is 'More Magic of Thassilon' ?
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Maybe this has been discussed elsewhere, but if you can use Craft Wondrous Item to make elixers that are not subject to potion limitations isn't Brew Potion an incredibly suboptimal choice?
6) Do you think it makes sense to say the Brew Potion feat should allow the creation of oils, elixirs, and other such wondrous items as well? Wondering what was the logic behind making those wondrous only.6) Oils are the same as potions, only they're applied externally. Elixirs and the like are better as wondrous items because there's no limit as to what level or type of spell you can make them from. Potions actually have a pretty narrow list of spells that are legal. They're wondrous items because they break the potion rules.
If a potion is worth less than 250gp, it only takes 2 hours to craft. There isn't a similar exception for Elixers. Also, the Elier exception is strictly part of the custom item crafting bit, making it need GM permission.
A couple of questions about monsters and the OGL since I'm still very ignorant about OGL. I'm curious because I am interested in using the soucouyant (from Caribbean folklore) for an adventure, but I recently found out there is a version in the Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Isle of the Shackles.
If you create a monster from mythology that already exists in a book (say, Green Ronin's Book of Fiends or Frog God's Tome of Horrors Complete), but it's fairly different from their version. Would you have to credit that book in Section 15 of the OGL?
Also, are the monsters in Paizo adventure paths and Campaign Setting books OGL? Could a 3PP use a creature from either of those, provided it's not tied to Golarion?
And finally, if a 3PP makes a monster from mythology that is in one of the Campaign Setting books but different mechanics-wise, would they still have to credit the book?
Thanks for any help.
What's covered by the OGL is the monster's stats. If you want to create your own version of the soucouyant, you can do so without citing Isles of the Shackles, but you can't use any of the rules or text we built to support our version. Since our version and a theoretical new version comes from the same mythological source, they'll have similarities, but they won't be the same.
Almost all of the monster stats we produce for Pathifnder are open content, though. There's been only a few we have not put into open content; the Deep Crow, the courel, and a few of the Lovecraftian adaptations from Pathfinder #46; these monsters we got special permission to stat up, and that permission did not include permission to make them open content. What is and isn't open content in a particular Pathfinder product is listed on each product's legal text at the start.
If a 3PP makes their own version of a mythological monster from a Campaign Setting book but has different mechanics... they don't have to credit that book, but that's kind of not the spirit of the open gaming movement, where it's more appropriate to build NEW content rather than duplicate efforts on existing content if that content is already open and otherwise works.
Those are fair points, thank you. I was statting up a version of the soucouyant before a friend pointed out that it had already existed. Truthfully, I think the Paizo version is better than what I was coming up with and I agree with making new content instead of remaking old stuff.
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Creative Director
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1. Pathfinder #1 (p.74) says that Eurythnia was "counting on spices" for it's economy, but Pathfinder #66 (p.73) says that Eurythnia was importing spices instead. Is this a change or an oversight?
1) Pathfinder #1 has a lot of errors in it. We were making a lot of stuff up there. For Thassilon, there are more accurate and better sources to check today than this. Pathfinder #66 is correct, in this case.
Before reading your reply my idea was a paragon with the Netherlands in the XVII century or Venice in earlier times. Their economy was based (together with other things) on the sales of spices, but they weren't producers (at least in their mainland) but instead importers and distributors.
It is possible that Eurythnia was doing the same thing? Importing spices from all around the world (and maybe even beyond) and then selling them to the other Thassalonic realms?
- * -
On a somewhat related note, there are strange spices produced in the abyss? or in Elysium?
For some reason I see spices more like a product from a chaotic land than from a lawful land. Maybe because I see lawful people as a bit more boring. A bit of chaos add spice in your life (as long as it is the right dose, too much can ruin it).
Anything is possible, but I'm not gonna bend over backwards to make sure that everything we said in Pathfinder #1 stays canon. Because there are a few things in there that are simply flat-out wrong.
There are indeed spices grown everywhere, including the outer planes, and spices from Elysium or the Abyss would indeed be strange.
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Creative Director
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How do you "redeem" someone in a game/campaign. I'm not talking about a PC. If Saranrae is the goddess of Redemption (among other things), how do you redeem a villain? Is there a mechanic to use? My homebrew includes a bleeding hearted liberal/monk devout of Saranrae, so it's starting to come up. Thanks Lord James of Jacobs.
There are rules for redemption coming soon in a Player's Guide, but until then, you can still redeem them by a combination of roleplay and atonement spells.
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Creative Director
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Maybe this has been discussed elsewhere, but if you can use Craft Wondrous Item to make elixers that are not subject to potion limitations isn't Brew Potion an incredibly suboptimal choice?
First of all, note that Brew Potion has lower requirements than Craft Wonderous Item.
Secondly, you shouldn't allow Craft Wondrous Item to make potions, or to make fakey potions. An elixir of cure light wounds should not exist; it should be a potion of cure light wounds. By not allowing Craft Wondrous Item to make everything a potion can make (or a rod or ring for that matter!) you simultaneously keep Craft Wondrous Item from getting TOO potent (it's already strong enough) and keep Brew Potion from being marginalized.
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Creative Director
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For an intellect devourer alchemist, how would their mutagen react with their host body?
By adjusting the host body's stats.
In fact, I would say that alchemist is one of those classes that an intellect devourer would NOT be able to fully "enjoy" unless it was in a host body.
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Creative Director
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Hey James, Reading AP #66's article on the Rune lords and I have a question.
Some the Relic have a listed souce I don't recognize. What is 'More Magic of Thassilon' ?
It's one of the few web enhancements we did for Pathfinder. Some of the contents of that web enhancement made it into print eventually in the Anniversary Edition of Rise of the Runelords.
Maybe this has been discussed elsewhere, but if you can use Craft Wondrous Item to make elixers that are not subject to potion limitations isn't Brew Potion an incredibly suboptimal choice?First of all, note that Brew Potion has lower requirements than Craft Wonderous Item.
Secondly, you shouldn't allow Craft Wondrous Item to make potions, or to make fakey potions. An elixir of cure light wounds should not exist; it should be a potion of cure light wounds. By not allowing Craft Wondrous Item to make everything a potion can make (or a rod or ring for that matter!) you simultaneously keep Craft Wondrous Item from getting TOO potent (it's already strong enough) and keep Brew Potion from being marginalized.
OK thanks.
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Will there be any supplements for the non-human settlements in Varisia? I'd really like to see more on Janderhoff and I feel you guys could do a great job without having them fall into the standard "drunken dwarf" stereotype.
Do you think the Gunslinger/Gun Rules are well written? they seem kind of underpowered and technically inaccurate to me :T
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Creative Director
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Additional intellect devourer questions: Does a host body retain skill ranks? What about feats? Is the ID really able to use all extraordinary and supernatural abilities possessed by the host body? If the host body retains skill ranks, would the mental skills be based off the host or the ID's mental scores?
The only things an intellect devourer can't use of the host body is its spells and spell-like abilities (it can use its own spells, if any, and spell-like abilities still). It gets to use EVERYTHING else the host body had access to, including skills, class abilities, supernatural abilities, and so on. They have, after all, consumed the host's brain.
Lastly, and non-intellect devourer related, why isn't there an "Ask Jason Bulmahn Anything!" thread? :)
Two reasons. No one's started one up, and he's not as active on the boards as I am.
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Creative Director
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Will there be any supplements for the non-human settlements in Varisia? I'd really like to see more on Janderhoff and I feel you guys could do a great job without having them fall into the standard "drunken dwarf" stereotype.
We do non-human settlements now and then, sometimes as support articles in an Adventure Path, sometimes in a player companion, sometimes in a Campaign Setting book. Stay tuned!
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Creative Director
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Do you think the Gunslinger/Gun Rules are well written? they seem kind of underpowered and technically inaccurate to me :T
I have a gunslinger in my game, and she is ANYTHING but underpowered. She deals out over a hundred points of damage with ease, sometimes with a single critical hit.
As for "technically inaccurate," they are ABSOLUTELY technically inaccurate. The gunslinger and gun rules are NOT meant to portray an absolute and accurate version of real-world guns, any more than hit points are meant to portray an absolute and accurate version of physical damage.
Same goes for the rules on swimming, or swordfighting, or building armor, or anything else in the game. It's a simulation and a game, and we make choices as often for fun game play as we do for "realistic" reasons.
Do you think the Gunslinger/Gun Rules are well written? they seem kind of underpowered and technically inaccurate to me :TI have a gunslinger in my game, and she is ANYTHING but underpowered. She deals out over a hundred points of damage with ease, sometimes with a single critical hit.
As for "technically inaccurate," they are ABSOLUTELY technically inaccurate. The gunslinger and gun rules are NOT meant to portray an absolute and accurate version of real-world guns, any more than hit points are meant to portray an absolute and accurate version of physical damage.
Same goes for the rules on swimming, or swordfighting, or building armor, or anything else in the game. It's a simulation and a game, and we make choices as often for fun game play as we do for "realistic" reasons.
I have a gunslinger in my game and he's been the most useless member of the group - a 5th level character, 3 levels of gunslinger, one level of ranger and one level of Cavalier.
And I was more referring to the range increment of the modern guns - the revolver has the same range as a smoothbore flintlock pistol.
If a blight druid took the time and energy to awaken an ooze, can it have class levels?