Creative Director
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I hope you can bear with me, I get critical with my later questions.
Me: What sort of suite would you recommend for empyreal lords?
You: Personally I'd aim for higher mental scores for most demigods.
1. What about spell-like abilities? How would they be similar to the suite that demon lords have? How would they be different?
Spoiler:2. Where did you get the idea for the Moldspeaker? It doesn't exactly have an Arabian Knights flavor, and risks the efreet-killing sword bonding with the wrong kind of class (i.e., classic squishy wizard).
3. At the end of Pathfinder #19 the PCs get a three-story mansion. Any advice on how to handle it under the new downtime rules? My thought is for Almah to give the PCs 5 Influence, 250 units of capital that can be either Goods or Labor, and have every room constructed a 4x speed for free. However, the reason I ask even though I have an idea to work with is because all the rooms in a mansion won't fill three stories.4. You said you wouldn't write APs where PCs are dupes. Doesn't a plot where they're tricked by the GM into freeing evil genies from the Scroll of Kakishon count? Yes, I did read the forward (Pathfinder #22, p.4-5).
5. In the final part of Legacy of Fire (Pathfinder #24, p.41), how would the PCs have any way of knowing that the erinyes need to be saved?
6. The encounter basically says "go kill these innocents, damn them to Hell, and disregard them." Didn't that disturb anyone when it was written?
7. Speaking of trapped souls, how would good-aligned PCs deal with the palace made out of living brass?
8. If you got to write Legacy of Fire again, what would you change about it?
9. Regarding the good chunk of Iz that fell into the Worldwound. Will the PCs have a chance to save the innocents condemned to the Abyss or have they been disregarded?
10. Why does Paizo keep trying to push the Mythos as oh-so-scary while not seeming to care about damned innocents? I apologize for being ranty here but this deeply disturbs me.
1) I'd aim for empyreal lord spell-like abilities to be more internally consistent with themselves rather than demon lords.
3) The downtime rules are flexible enough that you can fudge room counts for buildings, I think.
4) To a certain extent, yes. That was something of an experiment, and one that I was really nervous about trying out, frankly, but I felt that it was a strong enough story element and it wasn't a case of in-world characters tricking the PCs, and building the adventure so that no amount of PC Sense Motive or other observation can derail the plot. When the trick isn't attached to something that has stats, in other words, there's more leeway, story-wise, to do this kind of stunt. It's still risky.
5) In a campaign where wishes are flowing so freely, anything is possible, including learning information that you probably wouldn't otherwise learn. High rolls on appropriate Knowledge checks might work. Interrogating the right NPCs might work. Reading thoughts might work. There's lots of ways.
6) Yes. That's the point. We sometimes put mature content and moral quandaries into our adventures. And by "mature content" I don't mean "violence and sex." I mean content that is complex and meant to involve difficult situations where there may not be a "best option." In fact, having the erinyes turn back into normal women after death is an excellent way to surprise the PCs and force them to deal with the fact that this evil efreeti just essentially tricked them into murdering victims. At that point, how the PCs react to that is a test of character. They might just shrug and move on. They might take the time to bury the bodies and give them last rights and seek atonement. They might even expend valuable resources like resurrections or raise dead or wishes to undo what they'd done. Going above and beyond like this is a great way to reward the PCs with bonus story XP awards, and it's also a great way to have some alignment drifting, falling from grace, or redemption. If it feels too creepy and disturbing for you and your table, the easy fix is to simply say that they were ALWAYS erinyes devils... but I think that robs from the core idea that Jhavhul is a really bad guy.
7) They would likely be disturbed and horrified, but there's so much in the world that is that bad or worse that you just have to grit your teeth and do what you can to make existence a better place as best you can. Again... it's a character building moment... and a nod toward the fact that not everything in the game needs to be something that's nice and something that the PCs can fix. The world can be an ugly, hateful, cruel place, and not allowing that to happen in game breaks verisimilitude.
8) Not much. I'm pretty happy with how the AP turned out. I would be tempted to add more urban action into part 3, but beyond minor changes that would arise by making it a Pathfinder game instead of a D&D one (for example, looking at the erinyes encounter, we say that Jhavhul finds succubi to be too-easilly burned; in Pathfinder, we gave succubi immunity to fire, something they didn't have in 3rd edition, and so I'd have to rework that bit of flavor text some how), I wouldn't change much. Depending on the word count afforded by the "rewrite" I might add more content here and there, similarly to how we added content to the Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition... but I think overall Legacy of Fire stands up really well on its own.
9) Iz has plenty of victims in it, but not nearly as much as you think—it's not an "inhabited" city. It's a ruin occupied by demons, and is mostly empty overall given its size. In ANY war, there will be collateral damage and the loss of innocent lives; the best a party can do is to try their best to minimize those losses. Sometimes, that means letting 1,000 innocents to die so that 100,000 future innocents can be saved. Golarion's not a "safe" world though, where there is always an option for the good guys to rescue everyone. That's not the type of world I'm interested in setting adventures in, frankly. And I'm not sure why, for example, you're concerned about the "innocents" who might perish in Iz in the last adventure when in the 1st adventure a LOT more die during the attack on Kenabres. That, or plenty of other situations where evil triumphs throughout any AP.
10) I am a huge fan of the Mythos... and when we do big Mythos elements in our products, we see spikes upward in sales. Those are the two primary reasons you see Mythos content showing up now and then in our books. As for "not caring about damned innocents," I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill to a certain extent... but the death of innocents (if you even accept the fact that there is such a thing as innocence, frankly) is something that pretty much every story that involves conflict in the way that Pathfinder (or the fantasy genre overall) incorporates. It's not something you can escape if you want to be a fan of the genre. Also, keep in mind that for adventures... we aren't telling stories in the classic way a novel or movie does—because we're missing the MOST IMPORTANT PART of such a story: the main characters. The ones who can and will and should make a difference as for protecting the innocents are, in Pathfinder, the player characters... and that's pretty much the only part of an adventure we can't control or create. The whole POINT is to not create those characters. AKA: Finding a way to save as many people as possible is the job of your player characters. Our job is making sure that there are plenty of situations for the player characters to actually have a chance to do that in the first place.
That all said... Golarion does indeed tend toward the gritty, darker side of fantasy. It's MUCH more Game of Thrones than it is Harry Potter. That is a deliberate choice we made, both because that's the personal preference of the staff here at Paizo, and because it's a niche of fantasy gaming we felt was under-served. And judging by the game's still-increasing popularity, it was the correct choice. I fully understand that it's not everyone's cup of tea... but we can't build a game that appeals to everyone. No one can do that, and trying to will only ensure you build a game that appeals to no one. Least of all the game's creators. And the moment a game's creators, regardless of the type of game itself, is no longer interested in their project... that's how games die.
Dear James Jacobs,
About how many magical universities exist in Quantium? The source material seems to indicate several, not just one monolithic "Quantium Arcane University".
Along a similar line of questioning: could Taldanes and other Avistani peoples, for instance, be regularly found as students at Quantium magical universities, or would such mage apprentices in the main be Garundi, Kelishites and Vudrans?
How would you portray a character who's completely off his rocker, but not evil?
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Creative Director
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Dear James Jacobs,
About how many magical universities exist in Quantium? The source material seems to indicate several, not just one monolithic "Quantium Arcane University".
Along a similar line of questioning: could Taldanes and other Avistani peoples, for instance, be regularly found as students at Quantium magical universities, or would such mage apprentices in the main be Garundi, Kelishites and Vudrans?
The total number of universities is unrevealed, but I'd guess somewhere around six.
Yes; students from across the world can be found at those universities.
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How would you portray a character who's completely off his rocker, but not evil?
By roleplaying, and drawing upon inspiration from movies and stories that portray the particular type of crazy that I want to evoke.
One good general bit of advice is to look at any situation in a game and then do the exact opposite of what you think is the safest thing to do.
How would you portray a character who's completely off his rocker, but not evil?By roleplaying, and drawing upon inspiration from movies and stories that portray the particular type of crazy that I want to evoke.
One good general bit of advice is to look at any situation in a game and then do the exact opposite of what you think is the safest thing to do.
I already do this. Not because I'm trying to portray a crazy character, but because the opposite of the safe course often seems more interesting, and I want to know what happens if, for example, I toss a rock into the unnaturally still pool (2 out of 2 times, undead happened). Does this mean that I am, in fact, off my rocker? My fellow players seem to think so.
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Would you consider that there's enough to Pharasma's own version of the Death Domain to make it an actual Subdomain instead of just swapping some spells?No... because the goddess of death should be able to grant a domain called "Death."
My bad, let me try rewording that. As it stands the Death Domain is kinda pro-undead, but there was a blog awhile back that gave alternate spells for it to make it anti-Undead to fit with Pharasma being anti-undead. And then Sub-Domains came out. So the question is could you take and make a full blown anti-undead Sub-domain for it instead of just swapping a few spells. Sorry for not being clearer earlier.
Is it possible to have a Lawful Good antagonist?
Something I created involves a being whose goal is "transform everyone in the universe into my race and dull their negative emotions." He already does that for his own race, due to how they were created; if it wasn't for a monarch, the race would destroy itself. Once he achieves his goal, he'll seal himself away forever and exist solely as a receiver of negative emotions.
I see him as Lawful Good because he's noble, respectful of his subordinates, and treats his men as his own children. Even to his enemies, he is unfailingly polite and he refuses to (intentionally) harm non-combatants. It's just that nobody else in the setting really wants to stop being what they are.
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Mr. James Jacobs,
Would the Empyreal Lords allow one into their ranks who is not of the outsider creature type? Or would Empyrean Lords give an honorary title and count them as allies?
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I already do this. Not because I'm trying to portray a crazy character, but because the opposite of the safe course often seems more interesting, and I want to know what happens if, for example, I toss a rock into the unnaturally still pool (2 out of 2 times, undead happened). Does this mean that I am, in fact, off my rocker? My fellow players seem to think so.How would you portray a character who's completely off his rocker, but not evil?By roleplaying, and drawing upon inspiration from movies and stories that portray the particular type of crazy that I want to evoke.
One good general bit of advice is to look at any situation in a game and then do the exact opposite of what you think is the safest thing to do.
All signs point to yes.
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Creative Director
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My bad, let me try rewording that. As it stands the Death Domain is kinda pro-undead, but there was a blog awhile back that gave alternate spells for it to make it anti-Undead to fit with Pharasma being anti-undead. And then Sub-Domains came out. So the question is could you take and make a full blown anti-undead Sub-domain for it instead of just swapping a few spells. Sorry for not being clearer earlier.Would you consider that there's enough to Pharasma's own version of the Death Domain to make it an actual Subdomain instead of just swapping some spells?No... because the goddess of death should be able to grant a domain called "Death."
One certainly could do that. That's one of the things that subdomains do really well at.
I would not, though.
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Creative Director
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Is it possible to have a Lawful Good antagonist?
Something I created involves a being whose goal is "transform everyone in the universe into my race and dull their negative emotions." He already does that for his own race, due to how they were created; if it wasn't for a monarch, the race would destroy itself. Once he achieves his goal, he'll seal himself away forever and exist solely as a receiver of negative emotions.
I see him as Lawful Good because he's noble, respectful of his subordinates, and treats his men as his own children. Even to his enemies, he is unfailingly polite and he refuses to (intentionally) harm non-combatants. It's just that nobody else in the setting really wants to stop being what they are.
It's absolutely possible to do a lawful good antagonist. It's a lot easier to do this when there are limited lawful and/or limited good characters in the party.
A being whose goal is that type of transformation, though... he's not lawful good. He's lawful neutral. One of the underlying ideals of good, at least in my opinion, is respect for others. And if your'e all about transforming everyone else into something that is essentially your own opinion of perfection... that's not good. That starts feeling a bit like eugenics, in fact... and not to invoke Goodwin's Law, but anything that goes too far down that route starts feeling kinda Hitlerish to me.
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My bad, let me try rewording that. As it stands the Death Domain is kinda pro-undead, but there was a blog awhile back that gave alternate spells for it to make it anti-Undead to fit with Pharasma being anti-undead. And then Sub-Domains came out. So the question is could you take and make a full blown anti-undead Sub-domain for it instead of just swapping a few spells. Sorry for not being clearer earlier.Would you consider that there's enough to Pharasma's own version of the Death Domain to make it an actual Subdomain instead of just swapping some spells?No... because the goddess of death should be able to grant a domain called "Death."One certainly could do that. That's one of the things that subdomains do really well at.
I would not, though.
Any particular reason why?
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Mr. James Jacobs,
Would the Empyreal Lords allow one into their ranks who is not of the outsider creature type? Or would give an honorary title and count them as allies?
It's not a question of "would they allow it." They can't. It's not how the monster category works. Someone who was not an outsider who became allied with the Empyreal Lords and whose stats were on par with an Empyreal Lord would belong to a different category of demigod—probably just the broad category of "demigod,' but perhaps, based on their nature and flavor, a less restrictive category like "Great Old One" or "Eldest."
Mmm. Good to know, and think about.
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Any particular reason why?My bad, let me try rewording that. As it stands the Death Domain is kinda pro-undead, but there was a blog awhile back that gave alternate spells for it to make it anti-Undead to fit with Pharasma being anti-undead. And then Sub-Domains came out. So the question is could you take and make a full blown anti-undead Sub-domain for it instead of just swapping a few spells. Sorry for not being clearer earlier.Would you consider that there's enough to Pharasma's own version of the Death Domain to make it an actual Subdomain instead of just swapping some spells?No... because the goddess of death should be able to grant a domain called "Death."One certainly could do that. That's one of the things that subdomains do really well at.
I would not, though.
Because of pedantry and obsessive/compulsive behavior on my part, really. The goddess of death needs to have access to the Death domain if it exists.
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Because of pedantry and obsessive/compulsive behavior on my part, really. The goddess of death needs to have access to the Death domain if it exists.Any particular reason why?My bad, let me try rewording that. As it stands the Death Domain is kinda pro-undead, but there was a blog awhile back that gave alternate spells for it to make it anti-Undead to fit with Pharasma being anti-undead. And then Sub-Domains came out. So the question is could you take and make a full blown anti-undead Sub-domain for it instead of just swapping a few spells. Sorry for not being clearer earlier.Would you consider that there's enough to Pharasma's own version of the Death Domain to make it an actual Subdomain instead of just swapping some spells?No... because the goddess of death should be able to grant a domain called "Death."One certainly could do that. That's one of the things that subdomains do really well at.
I would not, though.
And she still would, her followers would also have access to a SUB-domain granted by it, sorry if this is getting annoying.
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And she still would, her followers would also have access to a SUB-domain granted by it, sorry if this is getting annoying.Because of pedantry and obsessive/compulsive behavior on my part, really. The goddess of death needs to have access to the Death domain if it exists.Any particular reason why?My bad, let me try rewording that. As it stands the Death Domain is kinda pro-undead, but there was a blog awhile back that gave alternate spells for it to make it anti-Undead to fit with Pharasma being anti-undead. And then Sub-Domains came out. So the question is could you take and make a full blown anti-undead Sub-domain for it instead of just swapping a few spells. Sorry for not being clearer earlier.Would you consider that there's enough to Pharasma's own version of the Death Domain to make it an actual Subdomain instead of just swapping some spells?No... because the goddess of death should be able to grant a domain called "Death."One certainly could do that. That's one of the things that subdomains do really well at.
I would not, though.
I'm not really sure what you're trying to do here.
In a PERFECT WORLD, the Death domain would be death-focused and would have no undead elements in it, and there would be a separate full domain called Undeath. Unfortunately, that ship sailed 6 years ago.
How would you portray an insane Lawful character?
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I'm not really sure what you're trying to do here.
In a PERFECT WORLD, the Death domain would be death-focused and would have no undead elements in it, and there would be a separate full domain called Undeath. Unfortunately, that ship sailed 6 years ago.
Sorry I guess I'm just confused on how Domains and Sub-Domains interact.
And she still would, her followers would also have access to a SUB-domain granted by it, sorry if this is getting annoying.I'm not really sure what you're trying to do here.
In a PERFECT WORLD, the Death domain would be death-focused and would have no undead elements in it, and there would be a separate full domain called Undeath. Unfortunately, that ship sailed 6 years ago.
A good thing to Houserule?
Replying to these answers…
You: I'm not sure why, for example, you're concerned about the "innocents" who might perish in Iz in the last adventure when in the 1st adventure a LOT more die during the attack on Kenabres. That, or plenty of other situations where evil triumphs throughout any AP.
I wasn't talking about civilian casualties, I meant when the Worldwound (the actual wound, not the name of the region) opened up, people were sucked into the Abyss, and presumably trapped there even after death. When I said "damned innocents" I meant literally, as in non-evil people forced to become fiends in service of their tormentors if they're lucky. At the risk of seeming callous, death of background characters in a fantasy setting doesn't bother me much because there's an afterlife for them to go to. And before I'm misunderstood again, this doesn't mean I'd be caviler about an NPC death (I'm guessing that question you got about Anivia is fresh in your mind).
You: The world can be an ugly, hateful, cruel place, and not allowing that to happen in game breaks verisimilitude.
Agreed, but the PCs should be allowed to fix that. It's fine if solutions have to be worked hard for so long as there are solutions. The suggestions you gave me for question #6 are good examples, and can also serve as solutions to the concern in question #7. What upset me was that the narrative didn't seem to care about this. Thankfully, I haven't seen this be a problem in later APs.
You: Golarion does indeed tend toward the gritty, darker side of fantasy.
I accept that, and I like the Pathfinder setting being gritty. I'm not like that guy who accused Paizo of a "terrorist attack" with the Book of Vile Darkness insert (which was rather tame compared to the actual book), or of threatening to set the industry back to the days of anti-Satanism witch-hunts. (You should Hickman all your Sorshen notes and watch him freak out.)
As to Mythos content itself (which seemed the focus of said insert), I like it as well. I like seeing modern monsters in a pre-modern setting as much as I like seeing such a setting being modernized as a whole (a lot). The thing is that Mythos monsters are just monsters to me. Horrific is a result of actions rather than being. A shoggoth is scary like a bear but not horrific, contrast with a bugbear torturing a child while his parents are unaware in the next room.
Wow, these are some juicy answers. Maybe I should be critical more often. ;)
Now on to an actual question!
You: I'd aim for empyreal lord spell-like abilities to be more internally consistent with themselves rather than demon lords.
So a different spell-like ability suite then. Any suggestions for specific spells?
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A good thing to Houserule?
And she still would, her followers would also have access to a SUB-domain granted by it, sorry if this is getting annoying.I'm not really sure what you're trying to do here.
In a PERFECT WORLD, the Death domain would be death-focused and would have no undead elements in it, and there would be a separate full domain called Undeath. Unfortunately, that ship sailed 6 years ago.
No need. We've got the Pharasma-friendly death domain out there already. It'll be appearing in the Inner Sea Gods book as well.
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Now on to an actual question!
You: I'd aim for empyreal lord spell-like abilities to be more internally consistent with themselves rather than demon lords.
So a different spell-like ability suite then. Any suggestions for specific spells?
Nope. I didn't design the Empyreal Lords, nor was I really all that involved in the Empyreal Lord book, so if I were to design one (including its spell-like abilities) I'd first look at what's come before and read up and do a fair amount of research, after which point I'd make decisions based on the specific one, really.
For demon lords, in order to preserve their "themes" I pretty much picked a static array of shared spell-like abilities and then threw in a few "customizable slots" for each grouping and went from there.
I don't believe that's the philosophy they took with the Empyreal Lords, and that doesn't make it wrong, just different. It's certainly worth remembering that the category "Empyreal Lord" is already very different from demon lord, since empyreal lord covers three times as many alignments as does demon lord and four times as many outsider races as demon lord. So, just as those differences exist, others can and should exist.
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Replying to these answers…
You: I'm not sure why, for example, you're concerned about the "innocents" who might perish in Iz in the last adventure when in the 1st adventure a LOT more die during the attack on Kenabres. That, or plenty of other situations where evil triumphs throughout any AP.
I wasn't talking about civilian casualties, I meant when the Worldwound (the actual wound, not the name of the region) opened up, people were sucked into the Abyss, and presumably trapped there even after death. When I said "damned innocents" I meant literally, as in non-evil people forced to become fiends in service of their tormentors if they're lucky. At the risk of seeming callous, death of background characters in a fantasy setting doesn't bother me much because there's an afterlife for them to go to. And before I'm misunderstood again, this doesn't mean I'd be caviler about an NPC death (I'm guessing that question you got about Anivia is fresh in your mind).
A staggering number of innocents were slain or eaten or absorbed or transformed or pulled into the Abyss or much worse when the Worldwound opened, and more victims along those lines continue to be claimed every day since over the past 100+ years. A PC who wants to go rescue each and every one of them has over a century of victims to seek out and save. That's a pretty overwhelming order, and it's WELL beyond the scope of a single adventure path. It's worth noting, though, that only a very small percentage of those who died during and after the opening of the Worldwound were transformed into fiends—that type of thing is pretty rare, in fact. The vast majority of those who died went on to whatevever the afterlife had in store for them anyway. The instance of a non-evil soul being forced to become a fiend is very much against the natural order of life and death and beyond, and as such requires powerful magic or pretty unique circumstances, such as having a bad guy use wishes to do it, or such as by having a specific monster use a specific special attack, or so on. The opening of the Worldwound itself isn't something that did that. In fact... one of the reasons that demons are more focused on tormenting and testing mortals instead of simple mindless overwhelming force and swift destruction is the fact that if they kill innocents, those souls don't go on to become demons. But if they give those victims time to despair and turn to sin, they do.
You: The world can be an ugly, hateful, cruel place, and not allowing that to happen in game breaks verisimilitude.
Agreed, but the PCs should be allowed to fix that. It's fine if solutions have to be worked hard for so long as there are solutions. The suggestions you gave me for question #6 are good examples, and can also serve as solutions to the concern in question #7. What upset me was that the narrative didn't seem to care about this. Thankfully, I haven't seen this be a problem in later APs.
PCs can be allowed to fix anything and everything. We can't accommodate every possible outcome in any one book, due to the fact that we have to pick and choose what we want to use our available content space to talk about. If a GM thinks we missed something, they can fix it; that's kind of the point. Whether or not the narrative in print seems to care or not depends in large part on the author, the tone of the piece, and simple oversight combined with a need to cover other more important aspects of game play, but remember—for the players, they don't get the print. They get only what you, the GM, present to them, and if you think an adventure skimmed over something important, you get to add that skipped element into your game and the players won't know any better.
Honestly, I think you probably read too much into that erinyes encounter. There's plenty of horrible things that happen to other people that are as bad or worse than that in our adventures, after all, and we don't have time to couch those events with advice on how they can be rectified.
Mr. James Jacobs,
How would you adjudicate wish and miracle spells to grant energy immunities, other immunities (Death effects, paralysis, etc), and spell-like abilities?
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Now that the Advanced Class Playtest is out in full force.....
When are we going to see your Dusk Elf Huntress? :)
I've finally ended my long exile from Mac OS. Right now I'm posting this from my stage 1 success... Mountiain Lion running from a virtual machine inside OS 8.1. Stage 2 is going to be a single disk Hackintosh.
It's good to be back.... even if it has to be this way for now.
Are you asking about my Night Elf Hunter from Warcraft? If that's the case... since she's named after a D&D character of mine that I've already transported into Pathfinder & Golarion (Shensen), that means she's already a copy! So she's already in the game!
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Hey James!
I'm going to be statting a mythic great red wyrm. I want to make this particular beastie even larger than the red dragon normally gets. So my question is: do you think it's appropriate for me to increase it's reach to 40ft (bite 50ft) and give it the "Massive" kaiju special quality as one of its mythic slots granted by its rank? Or is that worth 2 ability slots?
Sure! Mythic gives you an excuse to do whatever you want! The only real thing you'd need to worry about is if the final thing is the right CR, frankly.
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Mr. James Jacobs,
How would you adjudicate wish and miracle spells to grant energy immunities, other immunities (Death effects, paralysis, etc), and spell-like abilities?
By charging 25,000 gp per wish/miracle (or more), or by requiring that gp cost plus an extra rare component. And perhaps by imposing other limitations like "can only protect agianst one per day" or "Only protects against the next nine effects" or whatever.
Is it possible to have a Lawful Good antagonist?
Something I created involves a being whose goal is "transform everyone in the universe into my race and dull their negative emotions." He already does that for his own race, due to how they were created; if it wasn't for a monarch, the race would destroy itself. Once he achieves his goal, he'll seal himself away forever and exist solely as a receiver of negative emotions.
I see him as Lawful Good because he's noble, respectful of his subordinates, and treats his men as his own children. Even to his enemies, he is unfailingly polite and he refuses to (intentionally) harm non-combatants. It's just that nobody else in the setting really wants to stop being what they are.
It's absolutely possible to do a lawful good antagonist. It's a lot easier to do this when there are limited lawful and/or limited good characters in the party.
A being whose goal is that type of transformation, though... he's not lawful good. He's lawful neutral. One of the underlying ideals of good, at least in my opinion, is respect for others. And if your'e all about transforming everyone else into something that is essentially your own opinion of perfection... that's not good. That starts feeling a bit like eugenics, in fact... and not to invoke Goodwin's Law, but anything that goes too far down that route starts feeling kinda Hitlerish to me.
*Cough* *Hack* *Wheeze* Hermea *Cough* *Hack * Wheeze*
Ugh, it's dusty in here!
1. What's your opinion on the Silent Hill series?
2. How does a demiplane that operates in a similar manner to Silent Hill sound? (If you don't know how it works, I can elaborate)
What is your opinion on blue and orange morality?
Meaning the character's moral code is completely alien to our own, seeing different things as good or evil.
How would you fit most such characters into the standard alignment system?
I'm trying to avoid "Rocket Tag" in my gaming, but the buff for Smite Evil seems to promote this, even moreso around higher levels where this ability can be granted to an entire group. I have found no way around this within the rules (no real spells or abilities to block it, short of antimagic), from a design standpoint why does the ability increase damage and remove damage reduction with no countermeasure? I understand paladins need their schtick, but I'm trying to use adventures as written and it seems to allow one character to steamroll.
-A frustrated DM
Edit: I found your post here, http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2l7ns&page=546?Ask-James-Jacobs-ALL-your-Qu estions-Here#27289. With that in mind do items like Ring of Mind Shielding and spells like Misdirection/Undetectable Alignment fool alignment based attacks like Smite?
Edit Edit: I found the spell Corruption Resistance and for those pre-flight high intelligence BBEG's who are smart enough to prepare, the'd probably get a copy. I just prefer to make small changes rather than rewritting the system or a whole adventure. I understand I could just introduce lots of extra badguys (neutral guys) or wear the players down (which sometimes works), I like running things as written.
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James,
Heirloom Weapon AND Prehensile Whip are the absolute perfect traits for a Castlevanian Belmont character. However, they are both equipment traits. Is there any way to 'legally' get around the "one trait per category" rule? Asking on behalf of someone who wants to play a Belmont in the Carrion Crown AP.
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Creative Director
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Is it possible to have a Lawful Good antagonist?
Something I created involves a being whose goal is "transform everyone in the universe into my race and dull their negative emotions." He already does that for his own race, due to how they were created; if it wasn't for a monarch, the race would destroy itself. Once he achieves his goal, he'll seal himself away forever and exist solely as a receiver of negative emotions.
I see him as Lawful Good because he's noble, respectful of his subordinates, and treats his men as his own children. Even to his enemies, he is unfailingly polite and he refuses to (intentionally) harm non-combatants. It's just that nobody else in the setting really wants to stop being what they are.
It's absolutely possible to do a lawful good antagonist. It's a lot easier to do this when there are limited lawful and/or limited good characters in the party.
A being whose goal is that type of transformation, though... he's not lawful good. He's lawful neutral. One of the underlying ideals of good, at least in my opinion, is respect for others. And if your'e all about transforming everyone else into something that is essentially your own opinion of perfection... that's not good. That starts feeling a bit like eugenics, in fact... and not to invoke Goodwin's Law, but anything that goes too far down that route starts feeling kinda Hitlerish to me.
*Cough* *Hack* *Wheeze* Hermea *Cough* *Hack * Wheeze*
Ugh, it's dusty in here!
I highly doubt that if we ever stat up the boss of Hermea that he'll be lawful good. Lawful neutral is more likely.
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Creative Director
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Now that the revised playtest swashbuckler is out (after feedback from you), which parts of the new version reflect the feedback you gave?
What are your thoughts on the latest version?
Not gonna say anything. I'm not interested in fueling the playtest with any "James Jacobs says this!" ammo to use against the design team, since no matter what I'd say, some folks would use my words for that exact purpose, unfortunately.
Not gonna say anything. I'm not interested in fueling the playtest with any "James Jacobs says this!" ammo to use against the design team, since no matter what I'd say, some folks would use my words for that exact purpose, unfortunately.Now that the revised playtest swashbuckler is out (after feedback from you), which parts of the new version reflect the feedback you gave?
What are your thoughts on the latest version?
James Jacobs thinks the design team is wrong in some vague, unspecifed way! This must mean...something!