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Silver Crusade

Joana wrote:
Rysky wrote:
Glutton wrote:
Rysky wrote:
Been wondering, how exactly did the word "Paizo" come about? Any meaning to it? Was it a character's name? :3

I'll answer. It's Greek for "to play"

edit: hah, first google for "greek paizo" was a bible studies website, odd.

No. No you won't. (I kid, I kid, thankies :3)

Then to alter my question was name "Paizo" picked because of its meaning or were there also other factors for choosing the name?

IANJJ, but it's in the FAQ, and the story has also been told in the blog.

WHY does all this stuff show up after I've tried searching for it?!? *whimper*

Paizo Employee Creative Director

blackbloodtroll wrote:
Will we ever see a statted Akaname?

Unlikely from Paizo. Although a creature very similar to this is statted up in Green Ronin's "Jade Dragons & Hungry Ghosts."

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Rysky wrote:
Been wondering, how exactly did the word "Paizo" come about? Any meaning to it? Was it a character's name? :3

What the over-eager-to-help dragon turtle said.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Glutton wrote:
Rysky wrote:
Been wondering, how exactly did the word "Paizo" come about? Any meaning to it? Was it a character's name? :3

I'll answer. It's Greek for "to play"

edit: hah, first google for "greek paizo" was a bible studies website, odd.

Thanks for the help... but I'd rather not clutter this thread up with non-James Jacobs answers.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Duskblade wrote:
Hey James. Got another question: for the "Lore Warden" archetype for the fighter, I noticed how the 'combat expertise' bonus feat only replaces 'bravery 1'. Is this an error? Was the bonus feat suppose to replace the entire 'bravery' benefit (and not just bravery 1)?

That's a great question to take to the rules forums for possible FAQing. I didn't work on that archetype so I have no insight into the design goal there.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Rysky wrote:
Glutton wrote:
Rysky wrote:
Been wondering, how exactly did the word "Paizo" come about? Any meaning to it? Was it a character's name? :3

I'll answer. It's Greek for "to play"

edit: hah, first google for "greek paizo" was a bible studies website, odd.

No. No you won't. (I kid, I kid, thankies :3)

Then to alter my question was name "Paizo" picked because of its meaning or were there also other factors for choosing the name?

One big factor, I believe, was that it's a very unusual word for a US company, and that made it really easy to secure rights for a bunch of domain names.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Klaus van der Kroft wrote:

Hey James, I've always wondered, how do you guys present new ideas for your products?

Is it more a sort of meeting where you all go "People, we're low on centaur-related products, so we need IDEAS!" and you brainstorm for hours, or more in the line of "Guys, I had this great idea about dwarfs riding flying charriots pulled by pterodactyls" and then you add it to a pile of ideas to work on? Or maybe something different?

For the majority of our books and products, the ideas of what to do come from myself, Erik Mona, and Wes Schneider. For the rulebook line, add Jason Bulmahn to the mix. For the novel line, it's pretty much James Sutter. Other folks often help, and we sometimes have larger brainstorm meetings with the entire editorial department and Lisa to help come up with some general ideas for future books.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Diego Rossi wrote:

The rules about polymorph say:

PRD wrote:


When you cast a polymorph spell that changes you into a creature of the animal, dragon, elemental, magical beast, plant, or vermin type, all of your gear melds into your body. Items that provide constant bonuses and do not need to be activated continue to function while melded in this way (with the exception of armor and shield bonuses, which cease to function). Items that require activation cannot be used while you maintain that form.

Bonuses are definite as:

PRD wrote:


Bonus: Bonuses are numerical values that are added to checks and statistical scores. Most bonuses have a type, and as a general rule, bonuses of the same type are not cumulative (do not “stack”)—only the greater bonus granted applies.

So I assume that only things that respect the in game definition of bonus work.

Some people has countered that saying that that has strange consequences, like:

-A Belt that has you constantly under the effect of Bull's Strength, Cat's Grace, and Bear's Endurance. Works fine.
-A Ring that has you constantly under the effect of Resist Energy or Freedom of Movement. Doesn't work for some reason.
-A Ring that has you constantly under the effect of Shield of Faith. Now this one does work fine.
- Feather step slippers cease to function because they don't provide a bonus
- Boots of striding and springing do because they do give a bonus.

So what is the intention of the rule?

The intention of the rule is known by the design team, if anyone. A good question for the rules forums and a FAQ.


Could you go into the difference between prophecy and reading the future? There's a section in the Abendego Gulf chapter of Lost Kingdoms of Golarion that talks about some necromancer's eating the eyes of their enemies to be able to see the future.


If you had to guess where a discovery that allows alchemists to make constructs (or just homunculi) would show up, what type of book would you guess? Module, player companion, hardcover, etc?

Silver Crusade

James Jacobs wrote:
Rysky wrote:
Glutton wrote:
Rysky wrote:
Been wondering, how exactly did the word "Paizo" come about? Any meaning to it? Was it a character's name? :3

I'll answer. It's Greek for "to play"

edit: hah, first google for "greek paizo" was a bible studies website, odd.

No. No you won't. (I kid, I kid, thankies :3)

Then to alter my question was name "Paizo" picked because of its meaning or were there also other factors for choosing the name?

One big factor, I believe, was that it's a very unusual word for a US company, and that made it really easy to secure rights for a bunch of domain names.

Many thankies to you, Glutton, and Joanna for the answers :3


James,

1)How would you handle, in your own games, characters that have migrated from classical D&D worlds (such as Oerth/Toril/Krynn) to Golarion?

2) How would you conect the Great Wheel cosmology with the Great Beyond form Golarion to introduce a planeswalker sort of character?

3) How common were sorcerers among the Azlanti people (before Earthfall)?

Thanks in advance

Paizo Employee Creative Director

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Cheapy wrote:
Could you go into the difference between prophecy and reading the future? There's a section in the Abendego Gulf chapter of Lost Kingdoms of Golarion that talks about some necromancer's eating the eyes of their enemies to be able to see the future.

To a certain extent, it's about scale. Reading someone's future is small-scale; it's one person sitting with a fortune teller who either scams them or uses magic (like divination or augury or the like) to give advice.

A prophecy can certainly be about a single person, but it's generally NOT that single person who hears the prophecy first. It's more like something that's part of a culture or society, that folks can study and interpret for some time before it starts coming true.

For pathfinder, it's really only just a case of us at Paizo finding the use of prophecies in fantasy fiction to be an exceptionally tired and overdone cliche. It seems like EVERY SINGLE FANTASY story revolves around prophecies, and we didn't want to do that.

Furthermore... since Golarion's a game world, not a fiction world controled by one author, and since it's main characters (the PCs, the ones most likely to be doing prophecy related stuff) are the one part of our world we do not control, it makes a lot of sense to basically say something like "At this point in our world's history, we let player characters come in to do things, and that means that expectations fly out the door."

To a certain extent, the arrival of PCs in the world is what killed the concept of prophecies.

But the fact that they're super cliched and tired is why we outlawed them from Golarion.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Cheapy wrote:
If you had to guess where a discovery that allows alchemists to make constructs (or just homunculi) would show up, what type of book would you guess? Module, player companion, hardcover, etc?

Any of the above, plus a Pathfinder Adventure Path or a Campaign Setting book. AKA: Anything we publish, game related, could handle it.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Ral' Yareth wrote:

James,

1)How would you handle, in your own games, characters that have migrated from classical D&D worlds (such as Oerth/Toril/Krynn) to Golarion?

2) How would you conect the Great Wheel cosmology with the Great Beyond form Golarion to introduce a planeswalker sort of character?

3) How common were sorcerers among the Azlanti people (before Earthfall)?

Thanks in advance

1) They'd fit in pretty well. I'd probably say they arrived here via a magical portal, though.

2) The thing about the Great Beyond is that there's room for it to contain everything in the Great Wheel. By design. They're basically the same model of the multiverse, with a few exceptions... but the Outer Sphere is big enough to contain anything and everything that's been imagined, with room left over for everything and anything that's still to be imagined. The Great Beyond was designed to be infinitely inclusive.

3) Much less common than wizards. Much more common outside of human society.


Ont thing that has always bothered me is the idea that people who live in Golarion (or any other campaign world) don't believe in things like cryptids, when they believe in the existence of trolls, dragons, owlbears, kraken, etc. They know of all sorts of far out crazy monsters that prey on their goats, why disbelieve chupacabras? Of all the hundreds of things that could sink a ship, why disbelieve sea monsters?
In other words, why are there things still called cryptids in such a fantastic realm?


Rarely seen? And I can see an Ulfen Sailor who has never seen a Kraken saying it is just a Myth...

Paizo Employee Creative Director

DarthPinkHippo wrote:

Ont thing that has always bothered me is the idea that people who live in Golarion (or any other campaign world) don't believe in things like cryptids, when they believe in the existence of trolls, dragons, owlbears, kraken, etc. They know of all sorts of far out crazy monsters that prey on their goats, why disbelieve chupacabras? Of all the hundreds of things that could sink a ship, why disbelieve sea monsters?

In other words, why are there things still called cryptids in such a fantastic realm?

I actaully wouldn't have them be called "cryptids" in game. It's a handy way for us to categorize the monsters though. And you'll note that in a lot of our design for cryptids, we often give them great Stealth checks or abilities that help them stay mysterious and hard to find if they want to stay hidden.

It's also why we called the book about them "Mysterious Monsters Revisited" and not "Cryptids Revisited."


Thanks JJ... Now all I can think of is the Deleted Scene from Hotel Transylvania where Big Foot hides as a Tree when a car goes by...


Is Paizo ever going to revisit/rerelease the old 3.5 books or are you happy with how they exist and interact with the system already?


What other races besides humans worship sarenrae? Does that vary by region?

And I assume there are some members of monstrous races that were redeemed and converted, those would only really count if there were a lot of one particular race.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Albatoonoe wrote:
Is Paizo ever going to revisit/rerelease the old 3.5 books or are you happy with how they exist and interact with the system already?

Which old 3.5 books? We can't do anything with WotC books. If you're talking about our pre-pathfinder content... one reason we stayed compatible with 3.5 is so that we wouldn't HAVE to update all our back stock.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

The Golux wrote:

What other races besides humans worship sarenrae? Does that vary by region?

And I assume there are some members of monstrous races that were redeemed and converted, those would only really count if there were a lot of one particular race.

All seven core races worship her. Beyond that, she's worshiped a fair amount by good aligned ifrits and by a lot of aasimars.


I just want some Expanded Environment Rules as that seems to be the only thing I want not going to be in Ultimate Campaign...

Any idea when we might see Advanced, Ultimate, or Complete Environments/Environs?

Grand Lodge

Hey JJ,

If and when you guys do a Bestiary 4, what are the chances that the Xixecal will be a part of it, much like Hekatonkheires in Bestiary 3? With Reign of Winter coming out, this would be the perfect opportunity.

Sovereign Court

Is there some sort of formula or equation behind the Carry Capacity table's values?

Liberty's Edge

James Jacobs wrote:
Albatoonoe wrote:
Is Paizo ever going to revisit/rerelease the old 3.5 books or are you happy with how they exist and interact with the system already?
Which old 3.5 books? We can't do anything with WotC books. If you're talking about our pre-pathfinder content... one reason we stayed compatible with 3.5 is so that we wouldn't HAVE to update all our back stock.

So would you print npcs today who use magic items or feats from the 3.5 pathfinder material even if those have not been reprinted in a pfrpg source?

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

A great chunk of Paizo 3.5 magic items got updated in Ultimate Equipment.


James, the Pathfinder Savant's Esoteric Magic ability says the following:

Quote:
At each class level beyond 1st, the Pathfinder Savant chooses a spell from any class’s spell list and thereafter treats it as if it were on the spell list of his base spellcasting classes; if his base class could not normally cast that spell, it is treated as 1 level higher.

Since wizards already have Bestow Curse on their spell list, with this ability could a Wizard select Bestow Curse from the Cleric spell list and thereafter cast it as a 3rd level spell(like clerics do), instead of a 4th level spell(like wizards normally do)?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Azaelas Fayth wrote:

I just want some Expanded Environment Rules as that seems to be the only thing I want not going to be in Ultimate Campaign...

Any idea when we might see Advanced, Ultimate, or Complete Environments/Environs?

No. The idea of an environment book in the hardcover line is, in fact, one that several folks at Paizo are pretty lukewarm on, so letting us know that you'd like us to do a hardcover environment book can only help.

(I'm not one of those, though... having helped launch the environment hardcovers with Frostburn for WotC, I'm pretty sure that this is a solid idea for a hardcover—probably one that focuses on ALL environments though, since the rulebooks are world-neutral and because we do more monster books than 3.5 did, and therefore putting monsters in a hardcover rulebook might not work...)

Paizo Employee Creative Director

kevin_video wrote:

Hey JJ,

If and when you guys do a Bestiary 4, what are the chances that the Xixecal will be a part of it, much like Hekatonkheires in Bestiary 3? With Reign of Winter coming out, this would be the perfect opportunity.

Now that we've got Mythic Adventures on the way, we can indeed start to think about how to translate over some of the monsters from the epic level SRD rules. That said... not all of those monsters are equally great. We'll be picking and choosing what ones we do. And for something like the xixecal, since it's part of a larger family of monsters (abominations), that makes it a bit tricker... do we keep it an abomination and therefore have to put several abominations into whatever book we're doing them for? Or do we abandon that and make it a singular creature?

Anyway... I can say it's not currently on any to-do lists, the xixecal. Certainly not for Reign of Winter, since as it currently stands at CR 36, is way too high CR even for Mythic Pathfinder.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Baroh Steelcleave wrote:
Is there some sort of formula or equation behind the Carry Capacity table's values?

Dunno... if there is, it'd probably be something you'd have to ask Jonathan Tweet about.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Coridan wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
Albatoonoe wrote:
Is Paizo ever going to revisit/rerelease the old 3.5 books or are you happy with how they exist and interact with the system already?
Which old 3.5 books? We can't do anything with WotC books. If you're talking about our pre-pathfinder content... one reason we stayed compatible with 3.5 is so that we wouldn't HAVE to update all our back stock.
So would you print npcs today who use magic items or feats from the 3.5 pathfinder material even if those have not been reprinted in a pfrpg source?

If we do, we'd update the magic items or feats if they haven't yet been updated. The Lamashtu's Mark feat from Burnt Offerings is a good example—we updated that in the Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Sean H wrote:

James, the Pathfinder Savant's Esoteric Magic ability says the following:

Quote:
At each class level beyond 1st, the Pathfinder Savant chooses a spell from any class’s spell list and thereafter treats it as if it were on the spell list of his base spellcasting classes; if his base class could not normally cast that spell, it is treated as 1 level higher.
Since wizards already have Bestow Curse on their spell list, with this ability could a Wizard select Bestow Curse from the Cleric spell list and thereafter cast it as a 3rd level spell(like clerics do), instead of a 4th level spell(like wizards normally do)?

If a wizards selects bestow curse from the cleric spell list with this ability, it's not from the wizard spell list; it's from the cleric spell list. That particular bestow curse would indeed be learned in this case as +1 higher than the cleric spell.

The reason for that is because there are spells that specialized classes gain that are lower level than normal—for example, if the wizard took confusion from the bard spell list, it'd still be a 4th level spell for the wizard even though it's a 3rd level spell for bards.


James Jacobs wrote:
But the fact that they're super cliched and tired is why we outlawed them from Golarion.

But are they really outlawed? It seems like they are baked right into the setting, giving the setting a vast history and gods of prophecy. Outlawing them would be for the setting to never have had prophecies as you describe them. To me, this seems like brewing a pot of tea and telling me you're giving me hot water, not tea. Just because the tea leaves are removed from the water right before you give it to me doesn't mean they didn't have an impact on the drink.

I too think prophecy and fate are a tired cliché in fantasy writing and agree with everything you say about them, which is why I'm confused that they were included in Golarion at all. Obviously, PCs aren't bound by prophecy; I don't think any choice you make as a company is going to force players to do something to make one of your prophecies come true. But that doesn't change the fact that some non-zero amount of prophecies in the history of Golarion came true, no?

I believe it's also been stated that Aroden being dead and breaking prophecies is one of the most important aspects of the setting. Is that not a story that "revolves around prophecies"?

It probably sounds like I'm being overly argumentative, but I've seen this stated quite a few times about Golarion and I just don't understand it, I suppose.


James Jacobs wrote:
Azaelas Fayth wrote:

I just want some Expanded Environment Rules as that seems to be the only thing I want not going to be in Ultimate Campaign...

Any idea when we might see Advanced, Ultimate, or Complete Environments/Environs?

No. The idea of an environment book in the hardcover line is, in fact, one that several folks at Paizo are pretty lukewarm on, so letting us know that you'd like us to do a hardcover environment book can only help.

(I'm not one of those, though... having helped launch the environment hardcovers with Frostburn for WotC, I'm pretty sure that this is a solid idea for a hardcover—probably one that focuses on ALL environments though, since the rulebooks are world-neutral and because we do more monster books than 3.5 did, and therefore putting monsters in a hardcover rulebook might not work...)

While it might be a stretch for a hardcover, how would it sound as part of the Campaign Setting or Player's Companion line? Something akin to Animal Archive, but for environments.


James Jacobs wrote:
kevin_video wrote:

Hey JJ,

If and when you guys do a Bestiary 4, what are the chances that the Xixecal will be a part of it, much like Hekatonkheires in Bestiary 3? With Reign of Winter coming out, this would be the perfect opportunity.

Now that we've got Mythic Adventures on the way, we can indeed start to think about how to translate over some of the monsters from the epic level SRD rules. That said... not all of those monsters are equally great. We'll be picking and choosing what ones we do. And for something like the xixecal, since it's part of a larger family of monsters (abominations), that makes it a bit tricker... do we keep it an abomination and therefore have to put several abominations into whatever book we're doing them for? Or do we abandon that and make it a singular creature?

Anyway... I can say it's not currently on any to-do lists, the xixecal. Certainly not for Reign of Winter, since as it currently stands at CR 36, is way too high CR even for Mythic Pathfinder.

As a note... I'd love to see the Primal Elementals! I've always wanted to see Colossi and the Primal Elementas combined to be something like massive elemental titans (think the titans from the Disney Hercules). Would be awesome!

Paizo Employee Creative Director

drumlord wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
But the fact that they're super cliched and tired is why we outlawed them from Golarion.

But are they really outlawed? It seems like they are baked right into the setting, giving the setting a vast history and gods of prophecy. Outlawing them would be for the setting to never have had prophecies as you describe them. To me, this seems like brewing a pot of tea and telling me you're giving me hot water, not tea. Just because the tea leaves are removed from the water right before you give it to me doesn't mean they didn't have an impact on the drink.

I too think prophecy and fate are a tired cliché in fantasy writing and agree with everything you say about them, which is why I'm confused that they were included in Golarion at all. Obviously, PCs aren't bound by prophecy; I don't think any choice you make as a company is going to force players to do something to make one of your prophecies come true. But that doesn't change the fact that some non-zero amount of prophecies in the history of Golarion came true, no?

I believe it's also been stated that Aroden being dead and breaking prophecies is one of the most important aspects of the setting. Is that not a story that "revolves around prophecies"?

It probably sounds like I'm being overly argumentative, but I've seen this stated quite a few times about Golarion and I just don't understand it, I suppose.

They're outlawed in as such that we generally revise author turnovers to not use them when they show up. Prophecies that existed before the Age of Lost Omens may still work, but those that exist in modern Golarion don't work at all... or if they DO work, it's by sheer coincidence. And since coincidence is a really tough thing to get across in fiction or game design, we try to avoid it all.

Also, being able to say "In Golarion, prophecies don't work" is a really kinda cool and unique feature of the setting, especially when you consider that they DO work in pretty much every other fantasy setting. Golarion is a pretty standard fantasy gaming world, after all, but this is one way we can make it its own world that has some of its own features not shared by many other settings.

I've said it before—you can define a setting as much as by what you put into it as by what you don't put into it. Prophecies no longer being a part of Golarion is one of the ways we define the setting.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Odraude wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
Azaelas Fayth wrote:

I just want some Expanded Environment Rules as that seems to be the only thing I want not going to be in Ultimate Campaign...

Any idea when we might see Advanced, Ultimate, or Complete Environments/Environs?

No. The idea of an environment book in the hardcover line is, in fact, one that several folks at Paizo are pretty lukewarm on, so letting us know that you'd like us to do a hardcover environment book can only help.

(I'm not one of those, though... having helped launch the environment hardcovers with Frostburn for WotC, I'm pretty sure that this is a solid idea for a hardcover—probably one that focuses on ALL environments though, since the rulebooks are world-neutral and because we do more monster books than 3.5 did, and therefore putting monsters in a hardcover rulebook might not work...)

While it might be a stretch for a hardcover, how would it sound as part of the Campaign Setting or Player's Companion line? Something akin to Animal Archive, but for environments.

Sounds like not a great idea, since a large amount of the information we'd need to and want to do for such a book would be GM information, NOT PC information.

In fact, we've done a few environment-type books already, now that I think of it. "Into the Darklands" and "Heart of the Jungle" are both, when you get right down to it, environment books.


James Jacobs wrote:

They're outlawed in as such that we generally revise author turnovers to not use them when they show up. Prophecies that existed before the Age of Lost Omens may still work, but those that exist in modern Golarion don't work at all... or if they DO work, it's by sheer coincidence. And since coincidence is a really tough thing to get across in fiction or game design, we try to avoid it all.

Also, being able to say "In Golarion, prophecies don't work" is a really kinda cool and unique feature of the setting, especially when you consider that they DO work in pretty much every other fantasy...

Fair enough. I actually do a play off of your comments about no prophecies in my game. The campaign is called Threads of Fate and it started with a witch foreseeing the PCs' deaths and saving them. I've been careful not to have any true prophecies and the very few NPCs that seem to have gifts of foresight are essentially just using divinations. e.g. a mute child servant of Pharasma who can paint images of how somebody is likely to die. Most of the campaign is Rise of the Runelords so there isn't any actual prophecy at play.

The cool part is that the PCs have had conversations about what fate and prophecy means to them. In most cases, it was a resounding "even if fate goes against us, we can beat it."


Wow... I am currently reading my friend's Hear of the Jungle & Into the Darklands books... They are neat.

Are their any good sources for expanded Ice & Snow rules?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Azaelas Fayth wrote:

Wow... I am currently reading my friend's Hear of the Jungle & Into the Darklands books... They are neat.

Are their any good sources for expanded Ice & Snow rules?

Pathfinder #51, which has a big gazetteer of the Crown of the World (our northernmost continent) to support that volume's adventure, has lots of ice and snow rules. There's also a lot in People of the North, the Reign of Winter player's guide... and Reign of Winter, for that matter.


JJ,

I was looking at the monster creation rules when I noticed how many Paizo monsters are way out of line with the "monster statistics by CR" chart in the bestiary.

The Nabasu demon for example has slightly lower than expected saves and one less HD. However, it still has better AC, HP, the "high" attack stat, "High" damage, Spell Resistance, Damage resistance, Energy resistance, sneak attack damage, flying, Mass hold person DC21 (High save for CR8 is marked as 18)along with other at will spell like abilities that take advantage of its darkvision.

Is there any kind of guideline for how special abilities and special defenses can affect CR? How do you fine folks at paizo work with monsters to ensure that the difficulty matches the CR?


All this about prophecy and missing eyes makes me think about the 13 eyeless Krakens, is there some terrifyingly powerful underwater future watcher out there?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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anderssa wrote:

JJ,

I was looking at the monster creation rules when I noticed how many Paizo monsters are way out of line with the "monster statistics by CR" chart in the bestiary.

The Nabasu demon for example has slightly lower than expected saves and one less HD. However, it still has better AC, HP, the "high" attack stat, "High" damage, Spell Resistance, Damage resistance, Energy resistance, sneak attack damage, flying, Mass hold person DC21 (High save for CR8 is marked as 18)along with other at will spell like abilities that take advantage of its darkvision.

Is there any kind of guideline for how special abilities and special defenses can affect CR? How do you fine folks at paizo work with monsters to ensure that the difficulty matches the CR?

As mentioned in "Step 2: Target Statistics," monsters often excel in one area, and so having higher than normal stats in one category is actually pretty standard. When you have monsters that also have lower than expected stats, they can have more high stuff as well.

How all that goes together when building a monster also draws upon someone's monster-building experience. The more experienced you are at building monsters, the more you can fiddle with things.

So... take the nabasu as an example, and ignore its growth point stuff.

Spoiler:

It's a CR 8 creature.

hp: 3 above the expectation (103 versus 100), so that's close enough to ignore, since 103 is closer to the CR 8 expectation than it is the CR 9 expectation. RESULT: HP in line with expectations. No advantage.

AC: 22, 1 above expectation. RESULT: AC is a bit high, but not high enough to jump CR. Small advantage.

Attack rolls: +15, which is equal to the high attack expectation for a CR 8 creature. RESULT: In expectation for a melee-focused creature. No advantage.

Average Damage: 3 attacks that do an average of 29.5 damage on a round. CR 8 expectation is a range between 26–35. RESULT In line with expectations. No advantage.

Ability DCs: The nabasu's special attack DCs range from DC 16 to DC 21, with it's primary attack (its death-stealing gaze) being DC 18. A CR 8 creature should have DCs ranging from DC 12 to 18. RESULT: The nabasu's save DCs skew somewhat high for a creature of its HD. Telekinesis and mass hold person are the two abilities that are above expectations, but mass hold person only works on humanoids AND only gets to be used once a day, plus it's a spell-like ability and thus subject to concentration. Good advantage.

Saves: A nabasu's saves are all +9; a CR 8 creature's expected good saves are+11, the poor ones +7. RESULT: More or less in line with expectations. No advantage.

So, to summarize the numbers above against Table 1–1:

AT EXPECTED NUMBERS: hp, attack rolls, damage, saves.

SLIGHTLY ABOVE EXPECTED NUMBERS: AC

ABOVE EXPECTED NUMBERS: Ability DCs.

I wouldn't really count that AC as being all that significant, and so the nabassu, just looking at how it stacks up against Step 2 of Building a Monster is pretty much right on target.

The fact that Step Three is about Hit Dice is kind of disorganized, in my opinion, because if you adjust the HD too much, you mess up all the numbers you just built in step 2. If you're doing things right, the HD should end up being pretty close to your CR anyway. And since the number of HD comes into actual play so infrequently (really, it only really matters for a few spells like sleep or circle of death), I generally don't attach much attention to this number.

Now, as for things like the nabasu's defenses, mobility, and the sneak attack dice... those are all situational. They do give the nabasu advantages, but a prepared party will be able to defeat those advantages. You can use summoned monsters or party buffs instead of direct target spells if the SR is too much. You can bring the right weapons and attacks to the fight if you know it's a demon. You can limit its flight advantage by fighting it in a constricted area or being able to fly or have ranged attacks yourself (by the time the PCs are fighting CR 8 foes, we assume they have folks in the party that can fly or use ranged attacks). It's sneak attack damage is pretty scary, and it can really unload damage if it's in the right spot and can make a full attack, but getting sneak attack damage can be tricky, and a smart foe can work to negate those opportunities by fighting with the right tactics.

And so on.

In the end, the nabasu is a pretty solid CR 8 monster. As with any monster, it requires specific tactics to fight, and if you get those tactics wrong, it's gonna get rough.

The "guidelines" that you're looking for, in the end, are summarized in Step 6: Comparison. Once you design a monster, compare it to table 1–1 to makes sure it works... but beyond that, you should compare it to similar monsters as well.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Glutton wrote:
All this about prophecy and missing eyes makes me think about the 13 eyeless Krakens, is there some terrifyingly powerful underwater future watcher out there?

Maybe those krakens just had their juicy big eyes pecked out by seagulls before the person writing the news story found them...


James, would a vampire on the ethereal plane need to worry about sunlight?


James Jacobs wrote:
Azaelas Fayth wrote:

Wow... I am currently reading my friend's Hear of the Jungle & Into the Darklands books... They are neat.

Are their any good sources for expanded Ice & Snow rules?

Pathfinder #51, which has a big gazetteer of the Crown of the World (our northernmost continent) to support that volume's adventure, has lots of ice and snow rules. There's also a lot in People of the North, the Reign of Winter player's guide... and Reign of Winter, for that matter.

Thanks! Just what I needed!


You converted all the 3rd party prestige classes that were in RotRL to be something else in the anniversary edition, right?

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