Creative Director
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In most media there are bells and whistles associated with the casting of most spells. Usually a whooshing sparkly colored glow.
Do you think that the casting of a spell might give away the location of the invisible spell caster?
I guessing it depends on the spell.
We often illustrate spellcasting with associated glowing magic runes in the air. Smell and sound is absolutely associated with spellcasting as well. It's not something you can do subtly . You need special class abilities or feats or other things to cast spells without showing yourself off. Spellcasting gives away your invisible location as much as shrieking while invisible does.
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Creative Director
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1) Well, I'm honestly more concerned about the evil deities/demigods/whatever who grant the Glory domain...of the ones I know of, we've got Damerrich (LG), General Susumu (LE), Gorum (CN), Iomedae (LG), Jaidz (NG), Osolmyr (NE), Quindiovatos (LE), Rubicante (LE), Saranrae (NG), Shizuru (LG), and Uruskreil (LE) that grant it. Five good, one neutral, five evil. Seems a bit problematic to me that almost half the gods offering it as a domain can't actually allow their followers to prepare a third of the spells they get from a domain they offer...then again, maybe the deities should have their domains altered instead of creating an 'evil-friendly' Glory domain?
2) Does the number of domains a deity offers suggest their power? For example, I know most full deities have five domains (unless you're Nyarlathotep and weird and offer quantum domains), but does a deity having only two or three suggest they're a demigod or even a quasideity? I noticed some of the racial deities only offer two or three, as well as the elemental lords...is that because they're weaker, or just them being really hyperfocused?
3) This might be more of a Wes question, but I thought I'd see if you knew: In the first Bestiary, under the devil entry, in a similar location to where archons and azatas list empyreal lords and demons list demon lords, there's a list of 'Known Devils' that suggests the following names are 'Diabolical Lords'. Of the ones listed, three are archdevils, one is a malbranche, and the other six (Astaroth, Prince of Accusers; Glasya-Labolas, Author of Bloodshed; Nahemah, the Dowager of Divinations; Orobas, Speaker of Truths; Xaphan, Who Burns the Heavens, and Zagan, the Golden Blooded) are, to my knowledge, unknown entities. Do you know if they're supposed to be infernal dukes, malebranche, and other such that have yet to make an appearance (like many of the empyreal lords), if they're supposed to be important, but not necessarily demigod-level devils, or if they're simply a collection of flashy names that haven't had anything done with them yet to inspire DMs?
1) That's why deities offer multiple domains, so if one spell in one domain is a no go for you, there's the other domain's spell fo the same level to cast instead.
2) Full-on deities grant 5 domains. Demigods grant 4 domains. Anything that grants fewer than 4 domains is a quasi-deity (and currently the only way to do this is via Mythic Adventures). Nothing grants more than 5 domains. In earlier products, there were quite a few errors there, but we've standardized them today.
3) They're all infernal dukes, or perhaps previous archdevils who have been exiled or slain or otherwise replaced. The Malebranche are a specific subcategory drawn from Dante.
I just completed the epic Anniversary Edition of Rise of the Runelords! This was my first AP, and it was a blast! Is it odd that I feel so proud and accomplished for defeating a fictional Runelord?
I'm brainstorming character ideas for my next adventure: Curse of the Crimson Throne. I've got Korvosa's back, and Gaedren Lamm doesn't stand a chance! I don't want to set a precedent of "Hey James please make my character", so here's my question:
The RotR AE Player's Guide had awesome "Character Tips" section that I found super-helpful. It had 5 bolded subsections of guidance to make your character fit the setting, prove useful in the campaign, and help your party survive the harrowing adventures. If you organized a similar character tips section for a CotCT players' guide, what would you put in these bolded subsections as tips for making characters?
Nope, not odd at all! Be proud!
It's been AGES since I had my headspace in Curse of the Crimson Throne... but to have the most fun, it'd be best to build a native of Korvosa, a character that works well in an urban setting, and a character who's not evil. Beyond that, I can't really say much without spending more time than I currently have looking through the AP.
How about an Urban Ranger/Skirmisher who is a well-regarded local hero and one of Gaedren Lamm's former slaves?
Or maybe a Sable marine.
That makes even less sense than taco people.Hey James, you ever wonder if, like, somewhere out there in space, there's another planet like, exactly like ours, and, like, another...another website with, like, people on it exactly like us, except they're, like, tacos? Like, like taco people?Do they poop ice cream?
It's a South Park reference.
Will there ever be any application of Sign Language and/or Lip-Reading in Pathfinder? Even a small one?Into the Darklands has a few examples of this kind of language.
I guess more of what I meant was a universal application, such as in the linguistics skill. I was hoping, at some point, it would be easier to make a character that uses a commonplace, recognized Sign Language without having to resort to house rules... Surely, I've thought, there must be some kind of accepted Sign Language, and the people who speak it, in Golarion.
Not to mention the fact that I have NEVER seen ANY kind of mention or use of Sign Language or lip-reading in PFS...
I guess this may be because Sign Language is too difficult to use in a scenario or a book, because it has no written form?
Additional, it could be crazy useful for a PC to have the ability to read lips; covert operations and understanding the signing-impaired in a magically silenced area are two examples. (Although to be honest lip-reading may not be effective enough to work sufficiently for the second task.)
EDIT:
I did find something about lip reading in the FAQ... Those rules seem fair in bringing out the fact that lip-reading is actually pretty difficult. I read in a thread that according to 3.5 ANYONE could read lips by making a simple DC15 spot check, and the implied easiness of such a difficult task left me aghast.
However, Sign Language still seems rather unapproachable, especially in facets of Pathfinder that rely heavily on RAW, like PFS.
1. Since Sarerae’s the sun goddess, would any of her petitioners be ponies?
2. And how do animal petitioners manipulate things? Do their paws (or whatever) work as hands or what?
3. What’s your opinion of Cormyr from Forgotten Realms?
4. What strategic trickery can a lawful good ruler do, when seeking to take over a neighbor, without an alignment shift?
5. If you could design a lawful good kingdom (or other polity) where you’d want to live, what would it be like?
6. What is it about chaotic good that appeals to you more than neutral good?
7. Given the sample from Dead Can Dance your gave me, would it be safe to say that your preferred music can be described as “anything from a dark fantasy soundtrack?”
8. Did you know that dinosaurs aren’t extinct, they just moved underground?
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Surely, I've thought, there must be some kind of accepted Sign Language, and the people who speak it, in Golarion.
You should read Prince of Wolves.
What is your favorite character in the Inner Sea NPC Codex?
What's your favorite illustration?
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Creative Director
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1. Since Sarerae’s the sun goddess, would any of her petitioners be ponies?
2. And how do animal petitioners manipulate things? Do their paws (or whatever) work as hands or what?
3. What’s your opinion of Cormyr from Forgotten Realms?
4. What strategic trickery can a lawful good ruler do, when seeking to take over a neighbor, without an alignment shift?
5. If you could design a lawful good kingdom (or other polity) where you’d want to live, what would it be like?
6. What is it about chaotic good that appeals to you more than neutral good?
7. Given the sample from Dead Can Dance your gave me, would it be safe to say that your preferred music can be described as “anything from a dark fantasy soundtrack?”
8. Did you know that dinosaurs aren’t extinct, they just moved underground?
1) Nope.
2) Why would they have to manipulate things? They're animals.
3) It's okay. Not my least favorite part of the Realms, not my most favorite. It's kinda right there in the middle.
4) "Taking over a neighbor" isn't something a lawful good ruler would do. They'd certainly form a lasting alliance or even perhaps a merger or the like, but "taking over?" That's for lawful neutral or lawful evil or the like.
5) Like Magnimar, but less interesting, I guess. AKA: I'm not sure I'd want to live in a Lawful Good kingdom.
6) The individuality and free spirit combined with the edginess.
7) One of my preferred musics, but not the only one.
8) Makes sense!
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Creative Director
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1) The Oliphaunt has only been summoned to Golarion once. Has it more regularly been summoned to other worlds, or is that similarly rare?
2) Would you say that Xanderghul had the ability to call the Oliphaunt, since he was a witness to it? It seems to me as if knowledge how would be useful if only so you can defend against it, after the destruction it wreaked the first time. Or was he at least familiar enough that he could probably work it out in short order if he needed to?
3) What about other powerful personages, such as Baba Yaga? Or Elvanna?
4) How likely are demigods like empyreal lords or demon lords to know of the Oliphaunt and either have faced it or know how to summon it?
4a) In relation to #4 above, if a spellcaster attempted to call it in battle against a demon lord - such as Deskari, Baphomet or Nocticula, to follow a WotR theme - would they, at least, know what they were facing?
4b) How would they counter it, do you think? Or would they just run like hell?
5) Would demon lords, empyreal lords and their ilk be aware of Jandelay's existence and possess more details on just what it is?
5a) Jandelay is "proof against the Maelstrom" and the Rune of Jandelay defends against chaos - what would protean lords or proteans know of the place?
6) At the high end of Mythic, there's the mythic Immortal ability, the Abyssal Resurrection of Demon Lords, a Kaiju's Recovery, a GOO's cannot-truly-die and so on and so forth. The Oliphaunt, despite CR 30, seeminlgy lacks one. What was the reasoning behind that design decision? As it stands, the Oliphaunt can die, and while there's the punishment when it returns to Jandelay... what happens if it is killed while away from Jandelay?
6a) Empyreal lords don't appear to have a "Celestial Resurrection" power either, even though it's noted that they rule their own realms in similar fashion to demon lords. Another design decision?
7) Alderpash theorises that the Oliphaunt is a prisoner. However, from the statblock of the Oliphaunt, it clearly says that "the Oliphaunt was created to live in Jandelay" under the "Guardian of Jandelay" ability. Is Alderpash barking up the wrong tree here? It seems to me that while chaotic (Maelstrom?) energies may have been used to help create the Oliphaunt and indeed maybe create an "island of stability" in the Maelstrom if the Rune of Jandelay does what it says it does (magic binding chaos into ordered form in both cases?), the creature does not carry the traits of a prisoner. Alderpash of course doesn't have access to a statblock, so a mistake on his part would be understandable!
1) Unknown, but probably even more rare.
2) Nope.
3) Nope.
4) Unlikely.
4a) A single spellcaster working on his/her own can't do it. It requires a LOT of help. But if they could call it up... the enemies would likely know it if they made their Knowledge check, which most demigods can do easy.
4b) Depends on the demigod.
5) Some more than others.
5a) Yes, absolutely, and they are not fond of it.
6) Not everyhthing powerful lives forever. It can die, but it hasn't yet. Rest assured, if it DOES... something WOULD happen. What that might be isn't yet revealed.
7) Alderpash doesn't know everything... but there's more than one way to be a "prisoner."
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I don't have one. I'm not familiar enough with that book to have one.What is your favorite character in the Inner Sea NPC Codex?
What's your favorite illustration?
I don't mean to sound rude, but how does Paizo's creative director not have a copy of EVERY Pathfinder book? Don't you at least get a free copy?
I don't mean to sound rude, but how does Paizo's creative director not have a copy of EVERY Pathfinder book? Don't you at least get a free copy?I don't have one. I'm not familiar enough with that book to have one.What is your favorite character in the Inner Sea NPC Codex?
What's your favorite illustration?
I would hazard that James is saying he doesn't have a favorite character from the NPC Codex.
I don't mean to sound rude, but how does Paizo's creative director not have a copy of EVERY Pathfinder book? Don't you at least get a free copy?I don't have one. I'm not familiar enough with that book to have one.What is your favorite character in the Inner Sea NPC Codex?
What's your favorite illustration?
Having a book and knowing it by heart are two very different things.
Are there any deities other than say Nethys or Abraxas you would suggest for a character who was essentially an anti-spellcaster, focused on undoing magic?
Abraxas seemed the most thematic choice, but being a CE Demon Lord being a member of his faithful is slightly preclusive. While focusing on anti-magic seems counter intuitive to Nethys' faith.
On the topic of worshipping demon lords, you mentioned not many would suit PC's. Which demon lords would you view as the most CN PC friendly? If any?
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1. Why does lawful good have so much hate directed towards it?
2. On a related note, why the hate towards paladins? It’s like everyone turns into Morrigan (the one from Dragon Age, not Darkstalkers) whenever one shows up.
3. How would a lawful good nation deal with scummy neighbors like Mivon or Brevoy?
4. What exactly makes lawful good boring?
5. What do you feel neutral good lacks when compared to chaotic good?
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Creative Director
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I don't mean to sound rude, but how does Paizo's creative director not have a copy of EVERY Pathfinder book? Don't you at least get a free copy?I don't have one. I'm not familiar enough with that book to have one.What is your favorite character in the Inner Sea NPC Codex?
What's your favorite illustration?
I don't have one = I don't have a favorite character OR a favorite illustration.
We do indeed get copies of the products we make for free. I've got a copy of said book on my shelf at work, but beyond going through it for approvals before it was sent to printer and glancing at it for a few bits of art reference, I've not really looked at it enough to have a favorite anything from it.
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Creative Director
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1) Is there a reason you can reveal about why calling the Oliphaunt to other planets is even rarer than it is on Golarion?
2) I might disagree that a single spellcaster can't do it (mechanically based on what's been given so far, anyway...), but assuming mythic trials and similar as per Mythic Realms, what sort of Knowledge check would you look for? As standard, a Knowledge Planes check is 15 + CR to know what it is (so DC 45), but given the extreme rarity of the Oliphaunt and how legendary it appears to be, do you think it should require a higher DC?
3) If it depends on the demigod, then how would the three I mentioned react specifically? Nocticula, Deskari and Baphomet? Of the three, Nocticula is the only one who's CR 30...
4) Could a protean lord give directions on how to get to Jandelay? And what do they think of the Oliphaunt, since it's a powerful creature of chaos?
5) What sort of timeframe are we (as customers, that is) looking at for more hints on what could happen with the death of the Oliphaunt? Or on Jandelay in general?
5a) On a related note, if it was killed, would it leave a corpse that could then be resurrected with Miracle/Wish? Or does something else that you can't talk about happen?
6) More than one way to be a prisoner... hmm. Are you able to say whether or not I'm at least somewhere in the ballpark with my guess on the Oliphaunt's "creature of chaos" status and the Rune of Jandelay (which is elephantine in shape like the Oliphaunt...) binding/warding off chaos itself?
1) Only because it's rare to call it ANYWHERE, and calling it is, overall, not something any planet has done. Planets that have are the exceptions. Golarion is one of those exceptions, and that means by definition most other planets have not been visited by it.
2) Flavor trumps mechanics, first of all. And frankly, the idea that it's a harder Knowledge check to know about legendary things than it is obscure low-powered creatures has always been a disconnect to me. That said... the Knowledge check is to know its powers and defenses, not necessarily what it is. I would probably say that you could attempt Knowledge (arcana, history, religion, or planes) checks to know something about it's legends. I'd probably set the DC at 25 or 30.
3) It also depends on the location and the timing and the reason. A clash between a demigod and the Oliphaunt should be a culmination of a campaign, not a thing that just happens... and the development of all events up to that campaign's climax (or at least that adventure's climax) should inform it. In theory, all three of those demon lords would attack it, using minions against it first while they fight back from afar. Miracle spells would likely be used in an attempt to usurp control or do other things.
4) Perhaps, but the real question is "would it want to?" They are afraid of it.
5) Don't hold your breath. It took us over half a decade to say ANYTHING about it other than it's name. We're not in any rush to do more with it any time soon.
5a) It's not that I can't talk. It's more like I choose not to talk. I don't want to say too much here because saying things in public venues like this has a way of taking on weigh and becoming misinterpreted as writ-in-stone canon, and I'm not sure 100% what our future plans are for it.
6) See 5a above. The Oliphaunt is intended to a certain extent to be a mystery and an enigma to get people thinking. It did that job for 6 or so years. We revealed a LOT about it.
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Are there any deities other than say Nethys or Abraxas you would suggest for a character who was essentially an anti-spellcaster, focused on undoing magic?
Abraxas seemed the most thematic choice, but being a CE Demon Lord being a member of his faithful is slightly preclusive. While focusing on anti-magic seems counter intuitive to Nethys' faith. Same with Nethys. A person who hates spellcasting and wants to undo magic wouldn't want to worship a god of magic.
On the topic of worshipping demon lords, you mentioned not many would suit PC's. Which demon lords would you view as the most CN PC friendly? If any?
Abraxas is actually all about magic, and he isn't a very good choice for an anti-spellcaster at all.
Groetus might work, since he's a god of empty places and the void. Gorum would be a good choice too since he's all about martial supremacy.
Honestly? I'd say Nocticula is the only demon lord who's CN PC friendly, and even then that's a rare case.
I'm unsure to pitch this one to you or Jason. Here goes...
Given all the alignment threads on the boards, what's your take on how that system is perceived?
Would you rewrite it or simply add additional details to better define the sandbox of what each alignment represents?
I mean, after all the materials Paizo has put out about alignments I think I have at least an okay grasp on what you guys mean for a given alignment, but I'm SURE there are others that think differently than me and have read the same material.
Do you agree with this list: top 10 Godzilla movies?
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Creative Director
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1. Why does lawful good have so much hate directed towards it?
2. On a related note, why the hate towards paladins? It’s like everyone turns into Morrigan (the one from Dragon Age, not Darkstalkers) whenever one shows up.
3. How would a lawful good nation deal with scummy neighbors like Mivon or Brevoy?
4. What exactly makes lawful good boring?
5. What do you feel neutral good lacks when compared to chaotic good?
1) Good question. My theory? Because of paladins. Paladins have a code they have to follow or they lose their powers. It's a VERY strict code, more strict than anything else in the game, and it's been around the LONGEST of any such code. As such, it's the one players are the most familiar with. And since it's a code, I believe it appeals greatly to disruptive players who enjoy being disruptive to game sessions. The code comes VERY close to giving written down game rules that seem to justify and allow and even encourage behavior that, in most adventuring groups, is disruptive, and the disruptive player who plays a paladin enjoys that. He can be disruptive to the group and when the players and even GM try to get him to change, he can essentially say "It's the rules!" and sit back and smugly continue being disruptive.
That goes both ways. The player of a paladin who ISN'T disruptive often has to deal with the GM having a different interpretation of what is and isn't lawful good, or has to deal with players in the same way. It gets particularly frustrating when a disruptive player tries to get a paladin PC to fall by trying to force or trick or engineer situations where the paladin commits a chaotic or evil act.
And paladins are so closely defined by the alignment that they're kinda the same thing in some ways... and so people start to associate disruptions to play with lawful good characters.
2) See #1 above. Your first two questions are essentially the same thing.
3) With diplomacy, patience, and by shoring up their defenses so that if the scummy neighbor got aggressive, they'd not be able to hurt the lawful good nation.
4) To me? It's not the good half, it's the law half. Chaos is more unpredictable, law is predictable, and predictable = boring to me.
5) An edge. Neutral good has a "safety net of kindness" that chaotic good doesn't.
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Creative Director
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I'm unsure to pitch this one to you or Jason. Here goes...
Given all the alignment threads on the boards, what's your take on how that system is perceived?
Would you rewrite it or simply add additional details to better define the sandbox of what each alignment represents?
I mean, after all the materials Paizo has put out about alignments I think I have at least an okay grasp on what you guys mean for a given alignment, but I'm SURE there are others that think differently than me and have read the same material.
Personally, I think alignment works pretty good as is. That it's open to interpretation is a strength, not a weakness, since it helps to ensure that we CAN have philosophical conversations about ethics and morality in game. If Alignment were an absolute, we couldn't have those discussions, and since discussions like that are important to society, that would be a shame to lose it.
I suppose if I were to try to "fix it" I would give alignments ranks, just like skills. Your alignment would be something like chaotic (11) good (7) or the like, and the numbers would shift as you perform specific actions that grant or subtract points, and the higher your points, the more things like holy word or axiomatic weapons or alignment damage reduction or whatever would affect you.
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Do you agree with this list: top 10 Godzilla movies?
Wow. Ten minutes long? No time to watch it. Instead, here's my list of top 10 Godzilla movies, from best at #1 to tenth best at #10.
1: Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidora: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack
2: Godzilla (1954)
3: Godzilla vs. Destroyer
4: Godzilla Final Wars
5: Destroy All Monsters
6: Godzilla vs. Gigan
7: Godzilla vs. Biollante
8: Godzilla: Tokyo SOS
9: Godzilla vs. Hedorah
10: Son of Godzilla
The top 5 are solid. Slots 6-10 are not, they might shift depending on my mood.
Are there any deities other than say Nethys or Abraxas you would suggest for a character who was essentially an anti-spellcaster, focused on undoing magic?
Abraxas seemed the most thematic choice, but being a CE Demon Lord being a member of his faithful is slightly preclusive. While focusing on anti-magic seems counter intuitive to Nethys' faith. Same with Nethys. A person who hates spellcasting and wants to undo magic wouldn't want to worship a god of magic.
On the topic of worshipping demon lords, you mentioned not many would suit PC's. Which demon lords would you view as the most CN PC friendly? If any?
Abraxas is actually all about magic, and he isn't a very good choice for an anti-spellcaster at all.
Groetus might work, since he's a god of empty places and the void. Gorum would be a good choice too since he's all about martial supremacy.
Honestly? I'd say Nocticula is the only demon lord who's CN PC friendly, and even then that's a rare case.
I probably should have been specific in that by "anti-spellcaster" I was also referring to a character who is a spellcaster himself, who believes only he is worthy of/can be trusted to wield arcane magic so is very focused around counterspelling/dispelling. Looking back it probably seemed extremely weird to mention the two magic gods.
Groetus is a really cool choice I did not think of, thanks! I only mentioned Abraxas because of his association with "The Final Incantation" and greater boon being "The Penultimate Incantation" and so he seemed more content with unmaking magic than Nethys.
Does, the final incantation, literally unmake all magic? As in, magic is gone from the world. Or is it simply an incantation which can disperse/dispel any spell or magical effect? I always assumed the former.
I assumed the Final Incantation was like Darkseid's Anti-life equation: It can be used broadly or selectively.
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James, what about All Monsters Attack, AKA Godzilla's Revenge?
Personally, I recall it coming on during a Godzilla marathon when I was about 10 years old. 10-year-old me was extremely disappointed.
That's the second-worst Godzilla movie. Because it's basically just clips from other Godzilla movies.
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Creative Director
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1.) Is it POSSIBLE when Zon-Kuthon visited the Outer Realms or whatever phrasing were used, he came into contact with the The Great Old Ones and that drove him to become what he is now?
2.) How do you get so much accomplished with this thread here?
1) Nope; the thing that transformed Zon-Kuthon was not the Great Old Ones.
2) By spending a short time each day answering questions here during the start of the day or during lunch and thus keeping caught up so that I can spend the rest of the day doing other stuff.
Do the Great Old Ones know what transformed Zon-Kuthon? Do any of the Divine beings know? Or is it a mystery even to them?
Good afternoon, James,
Being one of Paizo's former resident experts on Greyhawk in the magazine days, what was your favorite Greyhawk region?
What is your favorite 1st edition adventure?
What was your favorite 1st edition class to play?
Thanks James, and I am eagerly awaiting Iron Gods in August!
Hi James, after searching the Boards I've come up blank on this:
Divine Source from Mythic Adventures. Say a character has 10 character levels, and 10 Mythic tiers, and (s)he has selected Divine Source at 3rd, 6th and 9th tier. By RAW, he can cast 1st through 9th level spells from a number of different domains/sub-domains.
But, what is his caster level? Is it 10 (his HD), is it 10 (his Mythic Tier) is it 20 (double Mythic Tier)?
My players argue for double Mythic Tier, that is, by the time you hit Tier 9, you can cast 9th level spells (and double the Mythic Tier would indicate a 18th level caster, which seems to make sense).
And, what stat would determine the saving throw? Wisdom? Charisma? The character's main stat (Int, or perhaps Strength if it was a fighter)?
thanks in advance if you can help clarify!!
Do the Great Old Ones know what transformed Zon-Kuthon? Do any of the Divine beings know? Or is it a mystery even to them?Some of them do, some of them don't. I suspect none of the Great Old Ones even care.
Can you reveal which beings know what transformed him?
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Creative Director
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Good afternoon, James,
Being one of Paizo's former resident experts on Greyhawk in the magazine days, what was your favorite Greyhawk region?
What is your favorite 1st edition adventure?
What was your favorite 1st edition class to play?
Thanks James, and I am eagerly awaiting Iron Gods in August!
I'm actually quite fond of the city of Greyhawk and its environs, but as a close second I'd nominate Istvin or the Ameido Jungle.
Queen of the Spiders.
Fighter/Wizard.
Yay!
In Ultimate Combat, there are alchemical engines for vehicles. These are really interesting, and I'm a little sad to see only two vehicles (neither of which are nautical) having them. That said, my questions are:
1) Would there be any way to build one as an additional means of propelling a ship?
2) What would be the cost and what skills would be required (Craft [machine]? Craft [alchemy], since that's used to run the engine?) to craft it?
3) What penalties or other requirements would there be?
4) What would be the fuel cost for each ship size per hour? Large/Huge/Gargantuan/Colossal ships, etc.
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Creative Director
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Hi James, after searching the Boards I've come up blank on this:
Divine Source from Mythic Adventures. Say a character has 10 character levels, and 10 Mythic tiers, and (s)he has selected Divine Source at 3rd, 6th and 9th tier. By RAW, he can cast 1st through 9th level spells from a number of different domains/sub-domains.
But, what is his caster level? Is it 10 (his HD), is it 10 (his Mythic Tier) is it 20 (double Mythic Tier)?
My players argue for double Mythic Tier, that is, by the time you hit Tier 9, you can cast 9th level spells (and double the Mythic Tier would indicate a 18th level caster, which seems to make sense).
And, what stat would determine the saving throw? Wisdom? Charisma? The character's main stat (Int, or perhaps Strength if it was a fighter)?
thanks in advance if you can help clarify!!
Caster level equals total character level. Mythic tier has no impact on caster level.
Since this grants you the ability to cast these spells as spell-like abilities, they automatically use Charisma to determine the saving throw.
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Creative Director
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In Ultimate Combat, there are alchemical engines for vehicles. These are really interesting, and I'm a little sad to see only two vehicles (neither of which are nautical) having them. That said, my questions are:
1) Would there be any way to build one as an additional means of propelling a ship?
2) What would be the cost and what skills would be required (Craft [machine]? Craft [alchemy], since that's used to run the engine?) to craft it?
3) What penalties or other requirements would there be?
4) What would be the fuel cost for each ship size per hour? Large/Huge/Gargantuan/Colossal ships, etc.
1) I guess so.
2) Dunno what the cost would be.
3) Dunno.
4) Dunno.
All these questions would more or less require new rules to be designed, honestly, and that could be the core of an entire book. (I'm actually of the opinion that we haven't 100% cracked the best way to present vehicle rules—the rules in Ultimate Combat get increasingly awkward the larger the vehicle gets if you're playing on a standard battlemat, for example).
Will there ever be any application of Sign Language and/or Lip-Reading in Pathfinder? Even a small one?Into the Darklands has a few examples of this kind of language.
I guess more of what I meant was a universal application, such as in the linguistics skill. I was hoping, at some point, it would be easier to make a character that uses a commonplace, recognized Sign Language without having to resort to house rules... Surely, I've thought, there must be some kind of accepted Sign Language, and the people who speak it, in Golarion.
Not to mention the fact that I have NEVER seen ANY kind of mention or use of Sign Language or lip-reading in PFS...
I guess this may be because Sign Language is too difficult to use in a scenario or a book, because it has no written form?
Additional, it could be crazy useful for a PC to have the ability to read lips; covert operations and understanding the signing-impaired in a magically silenced area are two examples. (Although to be honest lip-reading may not be effective enough to work sufficiently for the second task.)
EDIT:
I did find something about lip reading in the FAQ... Those rules seem fair in bringing out the fact that lip-reading is actually pretty difficult. I read in a thread that according to 3.5 ANYONE could read lips by making a simple DC15 spot check, and the implied easiness of such a difficult task left me aghast....
Hmmmm... Let me rephrase my question...
Will an "official" form of Sign Language ever be introduced to Golarion? In particular, one that is availible for use by a PC?
If there is any specific reason it hasn't or never will be, what is it?
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Creative Director
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** spoiler omitted **
Hmmmm... Let me rephrase my question...
Will an "official" form of Sign Language ever be introduced to Golarion? In particular, one that is availible for use by a PC?
If there is any specific reason it hasn't or never will be, what is it?
We've already done so. Again... Into the Darklands. Now that I'm at work, I can reference the book easier. It's on page 3:
Sakvroth: A secret language of silent hand gestures useful at close range by creatures with prehensile digits. It is most commonly used by individuals with darkvision in order to communicate discreetly without the need for light or noise.
There's two other languages as well that don't use speech in the Darklands; Canto (which is like morse code delivered by chest thumps or rappings on stone walls) and Vegepygmy (which is a similar language of raps and thumps with some use of pheremones for accents.
But Sakvroth is, essentially, sign language. It's free for PCs to pick up, as are any of the languages in the Darklands.
Now... if you're looking for a sign language to be introduced in a hardcover rulebook... that's a different thing than "official to Golarion." Sakvroth is that language already.
Could a half-elf benefit from the human favored class bonuses? I.E. a half-elf sorcerer could gain the bonus spell that human sorcerers could choose to get from favored class bonuses, since they count as human for things like feats and abilities.
How does the process of setting up an AP work? Like, after you have an idea for it, how do you set up what goes in each book? Flowcharts or plot charts?