Creative Director
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Hello James, a quick question about the APs.
I have heard that the latest one are balanced around parties larger than the 4 man party. It is true? And if so, from what AP?
All of our APs assume a 4 person party with stats built off of the 15 point array with players of moderate skill at gaming. The more you deviate from that core assumption, the more adjustments you'll need to make to the adventure.
I believe the PFS scenarios are built for 6 person parties with 20 point array assumptions, but I could be wrong.
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Creative Director
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James, does this argument (posted below) have any merit? I read it online and wasn't so sure. Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask such
a thing."Summoners have discounted a ton of spells for other casters who share the same spells with them. Magic item prices are set on the lowest caster level that a spell can be cast at.
When creating magic items, you can intentionally craft items at a lower caster level, as long as it is at the minimum caster level that the spell can be cast. Because summoners were given spells at lower levels than they should have been, we now have access to Core casters such as clerics, druids, sorcerers, and wizards can now legally buy wands and scrolls of these spells and use them with no trouble, craft some of their own items at a new lower caster and spell level to save in cost, and in some cases
scribe scrolls into their spell books for less money.Here's an example: Summoners get haste as a 2nd level spell, at 4th caster level. A whole spell level and caster level before the original sorcerer/wizard casters do. Now, a CL 4thwand of haste is legal, and costs only 6,000 gp, as opposed to the CL 5th version.
Several items are now incorrectly priced in the core rulebooks (such as boots of speed, which were 12,000gp, but now should cost only 8,000 gp). Likewise, you can now get summon monster V (traditionally a 5th level spell) into a wand (limited up to 4th level spells), along with any other spell listed in the 4th level summoner spells above."
We assume items are generally crafted by clerics or wizards as the baseline for pricing. That's what the items are balanced at, in any event, and what wealth by level and all other assumptions are for.
AKA: The lower spell levels for certain summoner spells was, in hindsight, an error. If you want to allow the less expensive versions of these items, or indeed things like a wand of teleport which is normally not possible with the rules, by all means go for it, but that's not options we'll officially be supporting or encouraging in print.
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Creative Director
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what are some of the flaws of Torag and Sarenrae and Shelyn and Cayden Cailean
Torag: Too stubborn and prone to cling to tradition.
Sarenrae: Too permissive of alternative and heretical worship practices.
Shelyn: Too quick to assume there's good in every soul.
Cayden Cailean: Too overconfident.
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Creative Director
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James,
In Ultimate Magic, there's a pregenerated Enchanter spellbook with "Symbol of Peace" as a spell that's supposed to be located in Chapter 5. I can't find it in the book, or on the website. A Google check doesn't get me anything either. Where is this spell and what does it do?
My guess? It was a poorly designed spell or problematic rule that was cut after it was deemed "unsalvagable," but then folks forgot it was also mentioned in the spellbook and forgot to replace it with a different spell. My reccomendation would be to simply replace the nonexistant symbol of peace with any other spell.
Assuming I have to assign the rolls in that order... a rogue.Character Creation! What do you make?
Nope assign in any order you wish. (14, 17, 13, 10, 11, 14)
Would you prefer to be a Fiendish or Celestial T-Rex?Fiendish!
Hmm... what about entropic?
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Creative Director
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You say Torag is too stubborn and prone to cling to tradition. Is that saying he has a bit of a habit to fall into the "LAWFUL Good" rather than "Lawful GOOD" aspect, in your opinion?yesInteresting, thanks.
As a different line of questioning, did you/have you/do you ever play Magic: The Gathering?
I played it a lot back in college, particularly between the releases of Antiquities and Homeland. When I quit, I'd collected every red card up through Ice Age, if I recall correctly... not sure I still have them all. My favorite color was red, of course, with green/red and black/red combos well loved as well. I was also the type of player who would gleefully Fork a Shaharazad. Ha.
Haven't really played the game in years though, save for idly with some of the iPad versions of the game.
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Creative Director
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Any reason why you dropped off? Was it the game itself, or just a lack of time? And what did you think of the setting itself behind the game? Planeswalkers, planes, the different worlds, and that sort of thing.
I moved to Seattle, away from Davis, CA, where all my Magic-playing friends lived, and for a year or so didn't have a lot of money to buy cards anyway. I started playing now and then every few years, particularly when I was working at WotC and took part in some of the in-house tournaments and leagues, but never really got back into the game.
I liked the setting, but at about the time of Ice Age, felt like the direction the setting was going was starting to become less interesting, mostly because the game was drifting away from using real-world mythologies and inspirations.
When did Ice Age come out?
Where can I find a time-line of the dates the APs take place?
As always, thanks for taking the time to provide thoughtful and fun answers to potentially stupid questions. :)
Is it possible for a necromancer to "create" a ghost, either purely by spells, or by e.g. ritually killing someone in such a way as to make the transition more likely?
Alternately, can souls, the likes of which are traded by fiends and night hags, or captured in soul gems through magic, be transformed into some sort of corporeal undead by sufficiently skilled necromancers? If so, how would they do it?
Perhaps. But mostly because I think fiendish stuff is more interesting than celestial stuff.All depends on how you fluff it, good sir. Take this bit, from a very well-written crossover fan-fiction between Mass Effect and Exalted titled Glorious Shotgun Princess. This is the moment early on in the story where Jane Shepard becomes a Zenith Caste Solar, her very soul being filled with divine energy of incomparable power.
** spoiler omitted **...
Do you have a link to the rest of this?
Are children in cheliax fearful of devils?
Would it be possible for a tiefling to be born of two aasimars, or vice versa?
You are born into Westeros, are you a Lannister, Stark, Baratheon, or Targaryen? Or are you a child of two families?
Are you happy with your family?
How many major characters will you kill before you take the Iron Throne?
Would that include family members?
Do you prefer to kill with Force of Arms or Politics?
Meh.Hmm... what about entropic?Would you prefer to be a Fiendish or Celestial T-Rex?Fiendish!
Entropic and Fiendish?
Resolute?
Fiendish and Resolute?
Fiendish Half-Dragon?
Half-Fiend?
James Jacobs-
Purely hypothetical scenario. In no way something I did ten minutes ago.
Given a device designed to be a perpetual motion machine, given perpetual motion devices have this slight problem with entropy build-up that turns them into really dangerous bombs, given that entropic explosions cause cascading fission reactions that spread through matter within a short distance of itself, given that the distance is short enough to convert an entire planet into a giant fission bomb but long enough space is sufficient to keep it from spreading, given the resulting explosion from such a device being activated on Earth may be enough to knock Jupiter out of orbit...
Is it inappropriate to go "Bwehehehehehehe! Kaboom!" when turning such a device on?
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Creative Director
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Where can I find a time-line of the dates the APs take place?
No such timeline exists, because we don't assume the APs take place at any time at all, frankly. They can all occur in any order you want... even simultaneously. The only exception is Shattered Star, which we assume takes place an unspecified number of years AFTER Rise of the Runelords, Curse of the Crimson Throne, and Second Darkness have resolved.
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Creative Director
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As always, thanks for taking the time to provide thoughtful and fun answers to potentially stupid questions. :)
Is it possible for a necromancer to "create" a ghost, either purely by spells, or by e.g. ritually killing someone in such a way as to make the transition more likely?
Alternately, can souls, the likes of which are traded by fiends and night hags, or captured in soul gems through magic, be transformed into some sort of corporeal undead by sufficiently skilled necromancers? If so, how would they do it?
Ghosts are created when the person who dies does so in a particularly traumatic or vexing or horrific or painful or unfortunate way. So it would stand to reason that a necromancer (or ANYONE) could engineer a ritual of some sort that would increase the chances of someone becoming a ghost upon their death, yes. Since it's a ghost, I'd say that the ritual's specifics should be 100% story-based and not simply reduced to a new spell or magic item, since ghosts are all about story and mood and the like.
A captured soul can theoretically be used to create an undead creature, such as via create undead or create greater undead to create a wraith or spectre or other incorporeal undead. I wouldn't really think you'd be able to create a ghost like this, since what creates a ghost is a traumatic death, and by the time a soul is captured... its death is long past.
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Creative Director
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Perhaps. But mostly because I think fiendish stuff is more interesting than celestial stuff.All depends on how you fluff it, good sir. Take this bit, from a very well-written crossover fan-fiction between Mass Effect and Exalted titled Glorious Shotgun Princess. This is the moment early on in the story where Jane Shepard becomes a Zenith Caste Solar, her very soul being filled with divine energy of incomparable power.
** spoiler omitted **
Have you looked into Exalted at all? There's a lot of stuff there that could make for an interesting Mythic campaign with a little adaptation. Particularly when dealing with beings that treat the laws of reality as loose guidelines.
That's true. But it also depends on your interests. If you're not as interested in topic A as you are in topic B, then you're simply NOT going to do as good a job at providing cool flavor for the topic.
I've glanced through Exalted, and there's certainly cool stuff in there.
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Creative Director
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Any chance you'd suspend your aversion to Doctor Who long enough to watch the episode "Dinosaurs On A Spaceship"?
According to showrunner Stephen Moffat who also wrote, it's an example of an episode whose title created the story. He'd asked Matt Smith what kind of episodes he'd want to have as the Doctor and that was one of the first things he blurted out.
Quote from Arthur (Rory Williams) Davrill on riding a triceratops. "There were times I had great concern for certain parts of my anatomy."
Very little chance. I've got THOUSANDS of hours of entertainment I have chosen to watch for my own entertainment via DVDs/BluRays I've purchased or my Netflix queues or films in current release, and I'd rather watch them than dip into Dr. Who. To a certain extent, the more folks try to push me to watch Dr. Who, the less likely I am to want to watch it and the more likely I am to be critical and unreceptive of it if I do watch it.
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Creative Director
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Would it be possible for a tiefling to be born of two aasimars, or vice versa?
Anything is possible, I suppose, but I'd say this would be very very VERY far down the list of possibility without some sort of external fiendish curse/wish type influence on the unborn child of the aasimar.
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Creative Director
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You are born into Westeros, are you a Lannister, Stark, Baratheon, or Targaryen? Or are you a child of two families?
Are you happy with your family?
How many major characters will you kill before you take the Iron Throne?
Would that include family members?
Do you prefer to kill with Force of Arms or Politics?
Stark.
Mostly.
7.
No.
Force of Arms.
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Creative Director
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James Jacobs-
Purely hypothetical scenario. In no way something I did ten minutes ago.
Given a device designed to be a perpetual motion machine, given perpetual motion devices have this slight problem with entropy build-up that turns them into really dangerous bombs, given that entropic explosions cause cascading fission reactions that spread through matter within a short distance of itself, given that the distance is short enough to convert an entire planet into a giant fission bomb but long enough space is sufficient to keep it from spreading, given the resulting explosion from such a device being activated on Earth may be enough to knock Jupiter out of orbit...
Is it inappropriate to go "Bwehehehehehehe! Kaboom!" when turning such a device on?
Nope.
So we know Nocticula is close to divinity from her lore but how close. Would slaying two more demon lords push her over the edge?
How many major characters will you kill before you take the Iron Throne?7.
Do you have specific characters in mind?
Do you ever feel like the bad guys win a little too much in the show?
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Creative Director
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So we know Nocticula is close to divinity from her lore but how close. Would slaying two more demon lords push her over the edge?
That's not something I'm yet ready to reveal... but there's some info about that in the last Wrath of the Righteous...
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Creative Director
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How many major characters will you kill before you take the Iron Throne?7.1) Do you have specific characters in mind?
2) Do you ever feel like the bad guys win a little too much in the show?
1) No. If I'm a character in Westros, I assume I'm a new character, and if I'm a new character, I assume there are LOTS of other new characters. I picked 7 at random.
2) Nope. Not at all. Especially since a lot of the characters who you initially regard as "bad guys" end up being "good guys" and vice versa as the books/show goes on. But the fact that the story is so brutal, and that death can come to anyone at any time, makes it a VERY refreshing story.
Nope. Not at all. Especially since a lot of the characters who you initially regard as "bad guys" end up being "good guys" and vice versa as the books/show goes on. But the fact that the story is so brutal, and that death can come to anyone at any time, makes it a VERY refreshing story.
So would you regard the cast as just a lot of very deeply flawed people rather than good or bad guys?