Are you interested in the release of Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD for the PS3? I heard that they will be the international versions(which we didn't get), I hope that is true.
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None at all, actually. Been pretty powerfully distracted by conventions and stuff.Sooo...has there been any progress in possibly getting this folk tale to come to life? I know things are awfully busy as of late for everyone at Paizo, I have to try though every once in awhile.The story of The Giant Who Had No Heart is one of my favorites and I was wondering, since all of the Paizo staff seem to love lore and myths, if this tale could be included somewhere?
The possibilities of this tales being made into a creature as part of an Adventure Path or story element, a PFS scenario, perhaps even a module! It is a touching story for me and I was curious if the myth has at least come across the creative table at Paizo and maybe what its chances of being included in the future could be. Thanks again Mr. Jacobs, game on !! -HJ
I've actually never heard that story; thanks for the link!
We go to the mythology and folktale "well" an awful lot for Pathifnder though, and so I wouldn't be surprised to find us doing something inspired by that (or any other legend) some day.
Dear James-
Any likelihood that this fable has the chance of appearing in the Bestiary 4? Sorry, I don't mean to pester you about this tale, I just know you could do this fable so much justice.
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Are you interested in the release of Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD for the PS3? I heard that they will be the international versions(which we didn't get), I hope that is true.
This is the first I'd heard of this—those two are easily my favorite Final Fantasy games, particularly FFX2 since it deviated so far from a lot of the things that annoy me about other Final Fantasy games.
Yes, I am interested.
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Creative Director
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None at all, actually. Been pretty powerfully distracted by conventions and stuff.Sooo...has there been any progress in possibly getting this folk tale to come to life? I know things are awfully busy as of late for everyone at Paizo, I have to try though every once in awhile.The story of The Giant Who Had No Heart is one of my favorites and I was wondering, since all of the Paizo staff seem to love lore and myths, if this tale could be included somewhere?
The possibilities of this tales being made into a creature as part of an Adventure Path or story element, a PFS scenario, perhaps even a module! It is a touching story for me and I was curious if the myth has at least come across the creative table at Paizo and maybe what its chances of being included in the future could be. Thanks again Mr. Jacobs, game on !! -HJ
I've actually never heard that story; thanks for the link!
We go to the mythology and folktale "well" an awful lot for Pathifnder though, and so I wouldn't be surprised to find us doing something inspired by that (or any other legend) some day.
Dear James-
Any likelihood that this fable has the chance of appearing in the Bestiary 4? Sorry, I don't mean to pester you about this tale, I just know you could do this fable so much justice.
No likelihood, alas. There's plenty of folklore-inspired monsters in Bestiary 4, but this particular tale isn't represented, unless it's changed so much that it's no longer recognizable.
Are there such a thing as mixed dragons in the Pathfinder universe? Like a Dragon whose parents were a Black and a Red?
Are there such a thing as mixed dragons in the Pathfinder universe? Like a Dragon whose parents were a Black and a Red?
Or a dragon whose parents were a Silver and a Red. Oooh, think of the scandal!
Maybe that can be part of the Golarion Dating Sim? "Dragons: Tooo Hawt to Handle!"
James do high knowledge checks let me know if the monster has immunities, damage reduction, resistances and spell resistance?
Question on advancing monsters in the bestiary. It says that each time you increase a monster's HD by 50%, it becomes larger. When you do this multiple times, do you do it when you increase it by 50% of the original hit dice, or when you increase it by 50% of the current hit dice? For example, if I took a creature with 4HD and increased it by 2HD, it'd grow in size. If I wanted to make it grow again, would it be when I add an additional 2HD (50% of the base 4HD) or an additional 3HD (50% of 6HD, the current HD)? Thanks.
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Are you interested in the release of Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD for the PS3? I heard that they will be the international versions(which we didn't get), I hope that is true.This is the first I'd heard of this—those two are easily my favorite Final Fantasy games, particularly FFX2 since it deviated so far from a lot of the things that annoy me about other Final Fantasy games.
Yes, I am interested.
What is it about the other Final Fantasy games that annoy you?
1) Have you read Lovecraft's comments on the attributes of cat and dog people? Were you amused/offended? I thought it was an entertaining read.
2) Do you know of anywhere where you can read his (Lovecraft's) letters?
3) Who would you see sit upon the Iron Throne?
4) Top 5 characters from Game of Thrones?
hi james, first time poster, long time reader. I have someone in my party that wants to buy/make living steel arrows. he of course wants to apply the sundering effects. I feel that he is just making durable arrows, not encounter ending sunder bombs that make the boss have destroyed armor after 2-3 rounds. love to hear your take on it....thanks!!
Hey James,
I'm pre-planning some aspects of my mythic extension of the Serpent's Skull campaign, and I'd like to ask you a few questions so that I can make sure everything is somewhat 'authentic' .
2. According to the destruction rules for The Skull of Ydersius, in order for Ydersius to be permanently killed he has to be slain right in front of Pharasma so he can be judged right then and there. I'm assuming Pharasma doesn't usually simply let people battle to the death in front of her. Assuming the PCs actually manage to arrange for this to happen(probably by doing major favors for Pharasma), is it most likely that it would be arranged as a sort of 'trial by combat' event between the PCs and Ydersius that Pharasma would preside over?
3. For the sake of making this final battle interesting (and giving players a chance to stay in the fight after dying and getting judged on the spot by Pharasma), do you think it would be fitting to allow mythic characters to make a Will Save to retain their memories after becoming a petitioner? At least I'm assuming that mythic heroes would be far more likely than most to retain their memories.
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James do high knowledge checks let me know if the monster has immunities, damage reduction, resistances and spell resistance?
Yes. Absolutely.
When I have players make Knowledge checks to find out about monsters, I ask them, "Do you want to know offensive or defensive or ecology or society information?" They tell me, then they make their check against the standard DC of 10 + the monster's CR (as indicated on page 101 of the Core Rulebook). If they make the DC, I tell them one bit of information about the monster in the category they chose. Each 5 points by which they beat the DC earns them another block of information.
Which is pretty much exactly how the Knowledge skill says it works on this topic on page 100 of the Core Rulebook—I add the "narrow your questions down" bit to reward multiple checks.
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The reason and nature of barring deities from the core of the positive energy plane is unlikely to be revealed anytime soon. Mostly because it's not one of the game's mysteries I've given much (any) thought to yet, and I don't want to make up something off the cuff. So for now it must remain mysterious.*snip* The Dimension of Time seems to have similar restrictions against gods, the implication being that because they're immortal, they can't enter the plane. Is this true, again, for all gods (including demigods), or just the full deities?
If it's true for all gods because of their immortality, then are there other non-deities who would be barred because of their immortality? For example, would a Runelord like Sorshen (i.e. immortal), or Ileosa if she succeeded in her ritual, be similarly barred from entering the Dimension of Time? Or is it only a very specific "transcended" form of immortality?
Curiouser and curiouser. And the Dimension of Time queries? (Reprinted above just in case you don't want to go hunting back to find them again.)
Are there any plans (either nebulous or under serious consideration) to do more planar stuff on a wide scale in the next 12-18 months or so? WotR will take players to one part of the Great Beyond - the Abyss - but it's only one plane, after all.
To duck away from cosmology for a simple Iconic question: beneath the "white mist" on Alahazra's eyes, what colour are/were they? Before the change, I mean.
Time travel is an element that I really REALLY do not want to touch at this point in Golarion, since there's so much that changes when you go back in time. As such, we don't plan on touching the Dimension of Time at all in the foreseeable future.
We WILL be doing more with the planes though—in Wrath of the Righteous, the PCs...
We don't have big plans to go anywhere else in the multiverse much at all in the next 12 to 18 months... but a lot can change and a lot hasn't been announced, so wait and see.
As for the color of Alahazra's eyes... that's something she doesn't share.
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Question on advancing monsters in the bestiary. It says that each time you increase a monster's HD by 50%, it becomes larger. When you do this multiple times, do you do it when you increase it by 50% of the original hit dice, or when you increase it by 50% of the current hit dice? For example, if I took a creature with 4HD and increased it by 2HD, it'd grow in size. If I wanted to make it grow again, would it be when I add an additional 2HD (50% of the base 4HD) or an additional 3HD (50% of 6HD, the current HD)? Thanks.
That, like the bulk of the "rules" for advancing monsters in the Bestiary, including Table 1–1, are as much rules as guidelines. As a general rule, yes, you advance its size if you give it 50% more HD... but you don't have to. You can advance it's HD by 100% and not advance its size, or only by 10% and advance its size. It really depends on what you want to do, your take on how the monster's biology works, and what's appropriate for the encounter you're designing.
My personal rule of thumb is that if I want to increase a monster's size, I try to at the very least add 2 to 3 HD per size increase.
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If Pathfinder were to get it's own single-player (or at the very least Non-MMO) RPG, what other game would you want it to most resemble?Baldur's Gate 2, or perhaps Planescape: Torment, or maybe Skyrim, or The Last of Us, or Mass Effect, or Fallout 2. Something that takes the best parts of those games and makes it into something even more awesome.How about a game where you explore the world the way you do in Skyrim, but when it comes to a fight the camera flies out to an adjustable overhead view for turn-based combat?
Haven't looked into Last of Us (if it's the game I think of; it's only on consoles that I don't have) and don't know what elements of Mass Effect you had in mind. Great story goes without saying, though - it's Pathfinder! How could it not have a great story?
That's kinda how Dragon Age worked, more or less. I like it for games where you're controlling a whole party, but I prefer real time for single player games like Skyrim.
Actually... the system they used in Fallout where you pause the game to zoom in to target specific parts of your target's body is pretty awesome.
The elements of The Last of Us that I would love to see in the game are beautiful writing, music, art direction, level design, pacing, characters, and maturity—the game itself rivals some elements of "The Road" or "The Walking Dead" in its intensity and poetry.
The elements of Mass Effect I want to see would be the cinematic style conversation system, the branching storylines that change as you reply to situations, the option to be a good guy or a bad guy, the option to build romances, having the choices you make in game 1 carry over to and change how game 2 and game 3 play out, and the beautiful writing and music.
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What is it about the other Final Fantasy games that annoy you?Are you interested in the release of Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD for the PS3? I heard that they will be the international versions(which we didn't get), I hope that is true.This is the first I'd heard of this—those two are easily my favorite Final Fantasy games, particularly FFX2 since it deviated so far from a lot of the things that annoy me about other Final Fantasy games.
Yes, I am interested.
That they all seem to feature a main character who is an angst-filled androgynous young man-boy who is not very likable, and that their storylines tend to plunge you head first into a huge mountain of new in-world continuity that doesn't give you much in the way of an education so that you know what's going on. Calling angels and demons "L'cie" or whatever they did in the latest one is a good example—everyone knows what a demon or an angel is, but made up words? If you do that, you need to do a better job defining your made up words and not assume that the player of the game knows what's going on as well as the characters in the game that have lived in that world the whole time.
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1) Have you read Lovecraft's comments on the attributes of cat and dog people? Were you amused/offended? I thought it was an entertaining read.
2) Do you know of anywhere where you can read his (Lovecraft's) letters?
3) Who would you see sit upon the Iron Throne?
4) Top 5 characters from Game of Thrones?
1) Being a cat person myself, I was pleased and agreed with him. In fact, pretty much all of Lovecraft's letters are fascinating.
2) Yes; Arkham House published five volumes of his letters. They're a little expensive these days, but if you're into Lovecraft, they're EXCELLENT and well worth the price.
3) Can't really reply without spoiling something for those who haven't read the books... so!
4) Arya, Tyrion, Daenerys, Jon, and Asha or Jamie or Davos (three-way tie).
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hi james, first time poster, long time reader. I have someone in my party that wants to buy/make living steel arrows. he of course wants to apply the sundering effects. I feel that he is just making durable arrows, not encounter ending sunder bombs that make the boss have destroyed armor after 2-3 rounds. love to hear your take on it....thanks!!
Hi there, and welcome to the thread!
After sifting around in the books to look up what living steel even is... I'm not seeing how the advantages of the weapon can really ever help ammunition, and am vexed as to why ammunition is even listed as one of the options. The fact that there's costs associated with it means you can certainly craft them normally, of course... but reading the description again, it looks like the only time weapons can be damaged by living steel is when a weapon strikes armor or a shield made of the stuff.
Living steel weapons don't gain any special bonus when used to sunder other weapons. So the idea of a "sunder bomb" isn't doable.
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Hey James,
I'm pre-planning some aspects of my mythic extension of the Serpent's Skull campaign, and I'd like to ask you a few questions so that I can make sure everything is somewhat 'authentic' .Spoiler:1. How large was ydersius at the height of his power? The book implies that his avatar is a lot smaller than his true form. The rock shell that his skull was extracted from takes up a 15 ft by 15 ft cube on the map unless I'm mistaken. This makes him at least Colossal sized... I'm tempted to say kaiju sized, but I'm not sure if one of those would even fit in the cave where he was defeated. What makes the most sense to you?2. According to the destruction rules for The Skull of Ydersius, in order for Ydersius to be permanently killed he has to be slain right in front of Pharasma so he can be judged right then and there. I'm assuming Pharasma doesn't usually simply let people battle to the death in front of her. Assuming the PCs actually manage to arrange for this to happen(probably by doing major favors for Pharasma), is it most likely that it would be arranged as a sort of 'trial by combat' event between the PCs and Ydersius that Pharasma would preside over?
3. For the sake of making this final battle interesting (and giving players a chance to stay in the fight after dying and getting judged on the spot by Pharasma), do you think it would be fitting to allow mythic characters to make a Will Save to retain their memories after becoming a petitioner? At least I'm assuming that mythic heroes would be far more likely than most to retain their memories.
2) More likely, the PCs must do a side-quest to approach Pharasma and petition her for permission to allow one of their own to serve as a "window" through which Pharasma can watch them slay Ydersius.
3) If you want the PCs to retain their memories after becoming petitioners, I'd just say let them automatically do so. That's more mythic than saying it's a Will save and thus only having a few of the PCs make it.
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How do you handle creatures with additional class levels or templates? Work the DC off their base CR? Use the adjusted? Base your response on what a creature of that type should be able to do?
Yes. Absolutely.When I have players make Knowledge checks to find out about monsters, I ask them, "Do you want to know offensive or defensive or ecology or society information?" They tell me, then they make their check against the standard DC of 10 + the monster's CR (as indicated on page 101 of the Core Rulebook). If they make the DC, I tell them one bit of information about the monster in the category they chose. Each 5 points by which they beat the DC earns them another block of information.
Which is pretty much exactly how the Knowledge skill says it works on this topic on page 100 of the Core Rulebook—I add the "narrow your questions down" bit to reward multiple checks.
For a creature with class levels, I'll use the base creature's CR, and if the roll's 5 or more, I'll throw in a "this one seems to be a wizard as well" depending on context and obviousness. For a creature with templates, I use the final adjusted real CR.
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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I was pondering the nature of composite nature of Magdh. What do you think of the three faces of Magdh each personifying a distinct alignment and only when united, having a single alignment? Or even purpose? In this case three separate beings of N, LG, and LE alignment with a single domain&subdomain. When all three are joined the deity is then LN with the full compliment of domains and subdomains.
The First World is listed as a demiplane in The Great Beyond. As such, it is infinite or not? The chaotic and always fluctuating manner would help to make it seem infinite, but that could be the will of the Eldest. On the other hand, I have always been struck by the line, "While the Shadow Plane exists as a pale, mocking reflection of the Material, some hold that the Material does the same for the First World,". Which could be interpreted to mean that it is infinite in size as well.
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I was pondering the nature of composite nature of Magdh. What do you think of the three faces of Magdh each personifying a distinct alignment and only when united, having a single alignment? Or even purpose? In this case three separate beings of N, LG, and LE alignment with a single domain&subdomain. When all three are joined the deity is then LN with the full compliment of domains and subdomains.
The First World is listed as a demiplane in The Great Beyond. As such, it is infinite or not? The chaotic and always fluctuating manner would help to make it seem infinite, but that could be the will of the Eldest. On the other hand, I have always been struck by the line, "While the Shadow Plane exists as a pale, mocking reflection of the Material, some hold that the Material does the same for the First World,". Which could be interpreted to mean that it is infinite in size as well.
Magdh is only on alignment. A single alignment can have all sorts of distinct and conflicting personalities.
The First World is a full on inner plane; it is not a demiplane. Some of the material in "The Great Beyond" has been refined since we soon thereafter settled in to the Pathfinder RPG for good. And none of the planes are infinite; a lot of them are big enough that for creatures with mortal lifespans they might as well be, though.
So, we get errata for mechanical changes, but what about errata for flavor, fluff, and story? Would you ever consider releasing a retcon list (or something like that) so we know what's not in the Pathfinder universe anymore?
It's implied that there are stronger nightshades than the nightwave. Will such horrid beasts ever appear?
Sweet Sarenrae, I hope not.
hi james, I am currently running a group of 7 players in Rise of the Runelords. For the most part, their encounters have been easy to handle even with adding max hp to sinspawn, erylium, tsuto, and koruvus. Now they go to Thistletop and I want to present them with a challenge. What changes would you make with Nualia and the other brilliantly designed enemies that await them. P.S. not out for a tpk......but, they really think they can take on the world right now..lol ty james
What more can you tell me about Princess Eutropia?
If you are the wrong guy to ask...who should I ask?
Beside the short little blurb in the Taldane Player's Companion and such where can I find more infomation on her?
Oh I forgot to ask this....
What do you blame Cosmo for?
Why Antipaladin have soo many bad spells >.< compared to Paladin? I can't even choose decent Level 1 spells. Paladin have really strong spells such as Lv4 Angelic Aspect, Greater.
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So, we get errata for mechanical changes, but what about errata for flavor, fluff, and story? Would you ever consider releasing a retcon list (or something like that) so we know what's not in the Pathfinder universe anymore?
At this point, we only really issue errata when we reprint a book, and when we know that book has need for errata. That pretty much only ever happens for the hardcover rulebook line, so when there's errors or changes we make to the other books, those changes kinda just have to lie low and wait for an opportunity for us to re-addres them.
For the First World, we made that change already, calling it a full-on other plane rather than a demiplane in the current "baseline assumption" book, the Inner Sea World Guide. There we group the First World along with the other inner planes with equal footing, along with First World planar traits. "The Great Beyond," as with ALL of our pre-Pathfinder 3.5 d20 books, shouldn't be given the same weight of "this is official" as Pathfinder books where discrepancies and differences appear.
In the long run, the difference between a realm being a plane and a demiplane is actually relatively minor though, and doesn't really impact much in the way of rules at all, so it's not an all that enormous change in the grand scheme of things.
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hi james, I am currently running a group of 7 players in Rise of the Runelords. For the most part, their encounters have been easy to handle even with adding max hp to sinspawn, erylium, tsuto, and koruvus. Now they go to Thistletop and I want to present them with a challenge. What changes would you make with Nualia and the other brilliantly designed enemies that await them. P.S. not out for a tpk......but, they really think they can take on the world right now..lol ty james
First... I would strongly consider rebuilding the map of Thistletop to give the place more room, not only for your nearly double-sized group room to move around, but so you can bolster the numbers of foes they meet. Simply changing the scale of the dungeon to 1 square = 10 feet is the easiest, although that does then start to make it feel weirdly big for goblins...
You can do things like give key NPCs like Nualia a mythic tier if you can wait to get the book. But otherwise, giving them more minions and more hp is the key.
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What more can you tell me about Princess Eutropia?
If you are the wrong guy to ask...who should I ask?
Beside the short little blurb in the Taldane Player's Companion and such where can I find more infomation on her?
We don't have much more to say about Princess Eutropia yet, although I like to think of her as the great heroine of Taldor who will some day save it from its own faults and warts and unfortunate traditions.
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Why Antipaladin have soo many bad spells >.< compared to Paladin? I can't even choose decent Level 1 spells. Paladin have really strong spells such as Lv4 Angelic Aspect, Greater.
Antipaladins are more intended to be villains, not PCs, first of all. That said... it sounds like it's not that they have bad spells so much as their spell selection just doesn't include the type of spells you like. They aren't paladins, and so if you like paladins and like their spell selection, it's unfair to expect that something the reverse of a paladin would have the same spells you'd expect on a paladin.
Personally... I don't see much of a difference at all between the paladin and antipaladin's spell selection, as far as "better or worse" goes. They're different, and they should be, and they both do their job well for what the class they're associated with needs them to do.
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We don't have much more to say about Princess Eutropia yet, although I like to think of her as the great heroine of Taldor who will some day save it from its own faults and warts and unfortunate traditions.What more can you tell me about Princess Eutropia?
If you are the wrong guy to ask...who should I ask?
Beside the short little blurb in the Taldane Player's Companion and such where can I find more infomation on her?
James, please consider making her the NPC heroine of a swashbuckling Taldan/Galtan AP.
Just my two cp.
I plan to run The Midnight Mirror and I'm wondering a little about the cult of Zon-Kuthon in Nidal.
- How can the average population (i.e. a majority of non evil people) can tolerate, as an official religion, a god of pain and suffering with temples looking like torture chambers and priests promoting self-mutilation ?
- What will happen if people of Nidal end up breaking their promise to worship Zon-Kuthon for eternity and turn to other deities ?
Thank you for the answer.
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I plan to run The Midnight Mirror and I'm wondering a little about the cult of Zon-Kuthon in Nidal.
- How can the average population (i.e. a majority of non evil people) can tolerate, as an official religion, a god of pain and suffering with temples looking like torture chambers and priests promoting self-mutilation ?
- What will happen if people of Nidal end up breaking their promise to worship Zon-Kuthon for eternity and turn to other deities ?
Thank you for the answer.
There's plenty of real-world examples of a population tolerating evil government.
As for what happens if Nidal breaks its promise? That's a HUGE world implication thing akin to "What if the Isle of Kortos sinks?" or "What if Andoran takes over Cheliax and defeats Thrune?" It's not something I'm really ready to delve into at this point, in other words.
Do you feel that
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James, have you seen the tv series Hannibal? If so, what did you think of it? With your particular preference in literature I'd expect that this series would be right up your alley. What do you think of Hannibal himself? Perfect example of a neutral evil person?
Also, I recently read that at the beginning of the 19th century around 75% of the worlds population were either slaves or serfs. How common would you say slavery is on Golarion? It seems to be far less widespread than it was in the real world. If that is the case, why is that so? Don't they need manual labor like Earth did at a comparable technology level?
Finally, my old gaming group got together last weekend for one last adventure (with me as the GM) and it was a lot of fun, we haven't played since our failed attempt about five years ago to run a Rise of the Runelords game set in the Forgotten Realms. However, the guys were quite surprised to learn that I was still subscribing to Pathfinder after all this time when I'm not playing the game. Apparently "I'm doing it wrong", this comment surprised me as I get just as much pleasure out of reading the adventures as I do running them. I've gotten the impression that quite a few people do the same thing. Do you happen to have any idea of how common this is? I don't feel that I'm doing it wrong, since reading the Pathfinder books is just as fun as reading a good novel.
What creature types, other than outsider, can be used as heralds?
Hello again, oh' toothy-mawed one. I was wondering, just how much detail have you guys put into the demi-plane of Dreams so far? I'm curious just how big it is, how magic and gravity and other physics stuff works there, how crowded and dangerous it is, stuff like that. Also, just how closely does it border Leng? If you want to just direct me to books or AP entries that detail a bunch of stuff about it, similar to how the last Kingmaker book went into stuff on the First World, that'd be cool too. Thanks in advance!
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Do you feel that ** spoiler omitted ** is the most powerful book 5 (of an adventure path) "big bad end guy" to date? He seems really really powerful, and his choice of place to do battle also heavily favours him. Not that I mind, someone give Brandon Hodge a canned ham for a Christmas bonus, the book is amazing.
Which NPC is more powerful depends in large part on the makeup of your party, but yeah... he's a tough one, and is in fact relatively depowered, I believe, from his original incarnation. That's more of a Rob question though.
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James, have you seen the tv series Hannibal? If so, what did you think of it? With your particular preference in literature I'd expect that this series would be right up your alley. What do you think of Hannibal himself? Perfect example of a neutral evil person?
Also, I recently read that at the beginning of the 19th century around 75% of the worlds population were either slaves or serfs. How common would you say slavery is on Golarion? It seems to be far less widespread than it was in the real world. If that is the case, why is that so? Don't they need manual labor like Earth did at a comparable technology level?
Finally, my old gaming group got together last weekend for one last adventure (with me as the GM) and it was a lot of fun, we haven't played since our failed attempt about five years ago to run a Rise of the Runelords game set in the Forgotten Realms. However, the guys were quite surprised to learn that I was still subscribing to Pathfinder after all this time when I'm not playing the game. Apparently "I'm doing it wrong", this comment surprised me as I get just as much pleasure out of reading the adventures as I do running them. I've gotten the impression that quite a few people do the same thing. Do you happen to have any idea of how common this is? I don't feel that I'm doing it wrong, since reading the Pathfinder books is just as fun as reading a good novel.
I've not seen Hannibal yet, but I've heard good things about it. I'll be waiting for it to show up on Netflix at this point. Based pretty much on Silence of the Lambs, though, I'd probably say Hannibal is either neutral evil or chaotic evil.
How common slavery is on Golarion varies wildly depending on where on Golarion you're at. The Inner Sea region is far too diverse to lump it all under one category there, but there's certainly slaves in more nations than there aren't. I would actually say it's about as widespread, if not more so, in Golarion than it is on the real world. And don't forget magic—while Golarion's technology level lags centuries behind Earth today, their magic allows for things we can only imagine.
And you're not doing it wrong, as far as subscribing or reading gaming material when you aren't actively running a game. I believe that a large number of gamers aren't in active games but collect and read gaming material because it's fun to read. That's a HUGE reason why we make sure our adventures are fun and entertaining to read, rather than use a format that might make running the adventures easier at the sacrifice of ease and entertainment to read. I don't have statistics to back it up, but I'd say reading game material that you aren't currently running or might never run is VERY common. I do it, I know.
The concept that a game book you only ever read but never run is fundamentally incorrect, I think. In the same way that the idea of reading a novel but never writing a novel is bad. Simply reading game books for pleasure or inspiration is, in my opinion, one of the most important things a game book can accomplish. Maybe even THE most important, because if something's not fun to read, why would someone want to play it?