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In Hell's Vengeance 5: Scourge of the Godclaw, a plot point/exploitable weakness of one ex-paladin NPC is that her son was taken prisoner, entirely unwillingly "given to Asmodeus," and is now in Hell.
In light of your having said earlier that you can't sell someone's soul unless they consent, I'm thinking this should be regarded as an authorial error. Is that correct?

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In Hell's Vengeance 5: Scourge of the Godclaw, a plot point/exploitable weakness of one ex-paladin NPC is that her son was taken prisoner, entirely unwillingly "given to Asmodeus," and is now in Hell.
In light of your having said earlier that you can't sell someone's soul unless they consent, I'm thinking this should be regarded as an authorial error. Is that correct?
It's not an error at all. There are certain vile rituals and the like that CAN consign a soul to Hell or somewhere it's not supposed to go. Book of the Damned has more information.

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Hello James, I have some questions (which I will put in separate posts), so I apologize in advance for the barrage.
If Paizo had published combat statistics in 1st edition for Primal Inevitables, Protean Lords, Manasaputra Kumaras, and Eldest, what would their CR ranges be?
Probably between 26 and 30.

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Is there a reason (either in or out of universe) none of the published Eldest are good, and if there is a reason, would you share it with us?
They tend to be neutral/impartial, and skew toward self-interests and mischief and trickery and such. They're not friendly folks, in large part because the traditions of faerie folk are not generally ones that present them as friendly.

Charles Evans 25 |
Charles Evans 25 wrote:It's forgettable. In that I know I've read it but it left no impression on me.James Jacobs:
What do you make of the story 'Sweet Ermengarde' by H.P. Lovecraft?
(edited)
Ah. That's interesting, because (although it's a genre switch) it seems to me to show something which doesn't seem to me to come through in any of the more 'usual' stuff he wrote, which is a sense of humour. He absolutely turns what he's sending up inside out, and fillets it.I was surprised when I came across it (I think I found a link to it somewhere or other on TV Tropes.)

Pharasmin |

Hello James, I was just curious what your standard is when you design and direct both adventures as well as world building content in regards to how much is expected to be added on the player's end?
So, from your point of view if everything was under your control, do you believe that you craft things with specific purpose and only small changes should be made to suit individual groups, or do you see what you make as more of a guidelines and you believe that an adventure should be heavilly modified before play, given the DM has the time for that? Or anywhere in between.

Goodpie2 |

So, I was discussing relative power levels in Golarion with somebody and the fact that Razmir the dude who literally pretends to be a god, is only level 19 came up. This brings up an interesting question- how many people have actually managed to reach level 20? I get that you obviously can't give an exact number, but what's a rough estimate? I've only been able to find roughly 25, though there are a few more potential candidates that I can think of, and I'm sure I'm not aware of all of them.
So, roughly how many people in history have managed to reach level 20?

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Hello James, I was just curious what your standard is when you design and direct both adventures as well as world building content in regards to how much is expected to be added on the player's end?
So, from your point of view if everything was under your control, do you believe that you craft things with specific purpose and only small changes should be made to suit individual groups, or do you see what you make as more of a guidelines and you believe that an adventure should be heavilly modified before play, given the DM has the time for that? Or anywhere in between.
I try to build adventures and world content so that for the average GM/player, no additional work is needed to make things run well. It's best if the GM has as little work she HAS to do to make the game work for her table so that she can focus on changes she wants to make rather than being forced to use time to do things that aren't as fun to do, if that makes sense.

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So, I was discussing relative power levels in Golarion with somebody and the fact that Razmir the dude who literally pretends to be a god, is only level 19 came up. This brings up an interesting question- how many people have actually managed to reach level 20? I get that you obviously can't give an exact number, but what's a rough estimate? I've only been able to find roughly 25, though there are a few more potential candidates that I can think of, and I'm sure I'm not aware of all of them.
So, roughly how many people in history have managed to reach level 20?
No idea, and it doesn't really matter, does it? As many reach level 20 as you want for your game, and when you need one to be that high level, you (or us, or whoever) can just add that NPC to the game without worrying about depleting some sort of limited in-world "resource" of level 20 NPC slots.
We made Razmir level 19 not because we were trying to limit the number of 20th level NPCs, but because making him not QUITE as high level as possible fit his theme of being someone who's not quite as good as he could be. He claims to be a god but isn't, and keeping him one level shy of max level helps that theme, if only metaphorically.

Goodpie2 |

Goodpie2 wrote:So, I was discussing relative power levels in Golarion with somebody and the fact that Razmir the dude who literally pretends to be a god, is only level 19 came up. This brings up an interesting question- how many people have actually managed to reach level 20? I get that you obviously can't give an exact number, but what's a rough estimate? I've only been able to find roughly 25, though there are a few more potential candidates that I can think of, and I'm sure I'm not aware of all of them.
So, roughly how many people in history have managed to reach level 20?
No idea, and it doesn't really matter, does it? As many reach level 20 as you want for your game, and when you need one to be that high level, you (or us, or whoever) can just add that NPC to the game without worrying about depleting some sort of limited in-world "resource" of level 20 NPC slots.
We made Razmir level 19 not because we were trying to limit the number of 20th level NPCs, but because making him not QUITE as high level as possible fit his theme of being someone who's not quite as good as he could be. He claims to be a god but isn't, and keeping him one level shy of max level helps that theme, if only metaphorically.
Kinda? The question is how unusual it is, in Golarion, for a character to reach that level of power. I'm not asking as though there's some sort of "cap," I'm wondering how impressive the accomplishment is, from a lore perspective.

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Kinda? The question is how unusual it is, in Golarion, for a character to reach that level of power. I'm not asking as though there's some sort of "cap," I'm wondering how impressive the accomplishment is, from a lore perspective.
It's rare enough that it only happens enough for us to support the casts of 2 Adventure Paths a year.
From a lore perspective, it's very impressive.

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That did answer my question, but as a follow up, if you were given more resources and time, to the extent that you wouldn't have to be concerned with either of them, what would your ideal adventure look like and how would it compare to what we currently recieve?
An ideal adventure would be something akin to what Chaosium does with their deluxe adventures. It'd be in a box, come with dozens of support documents and handouts and maps and things, and cover an entire campaign all at once. And would probably cost a customer a few hundred dollars to buy, but that's no different than buying 6 adventure path volumes and a support book for the region. Just you're buying it all at once, not spread out over half a year.

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It seems that you missed my question. So I ask again. Many new characters and events are added to Pathfinder: Kingmaker. Are you or other Paizo developers involved in the storyline of the game? Or the storyline of the game is made purely by Owlcat Games?
They created the new content, but worked with us on the themes and overall ideas.

Aenigma |
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I really like Pathfinder: Kingmaker. It is a great game. I really wish Owlcat Games would make more Pathfinder CRPG in the future. Did Paizo sell them the right to produce games based on every published adventure path? Or they are allowed to produce only this one, and if they want to make more games, they have to negotiate an agreement with Paizo again? I ask this because I really wish to see a CRPG(which means, not an online game) based on Thornkeep and the Emerald Spire!

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I really like Pathfinder: Kingmaker. It is a great game. I really wish Owlcat Games would make more Pathfinder CRPG in the future. Did Paizo sell them the right to produce games based on every published adventure path? Or they are allowed to produce only this one, and if they want to make more games, they have to negotiate an agreement with Paizo again? I ask this because I really wish to see a CRPG(which means, not an online game) based on Thornkeep and the Emerald Spire!
There's certainly an opportunity for more games like Kingmaker in the future, but Emerald Spire is probably at the bottom of the list of adaptations I want to see happen to tell the truth. The Adventure Paths are MUCH riper territory to explore in this format.

bananahell |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |

Aenigma wrote:I really like Pathfinder: Kingmaker. It is a great game. I really wish Owlcat Games would make more Pathfinder CRPG in the future. Did Paizo sell them the right to produce games based on every published adventure path? Or they are allowed to produce only this one, and if they want to make more games, they have to negotiate an agreement with Paizo again? I ask this because I really wish to see a CRPG(which means, not an online game) based on Thornkeep and the Emerald Spire!There's certainly an opportunity for more games like Kingmaker in the future, but Emerald Spire is probably at the bottom of the list of adaptations I want to see happen to tell the truth. The Adventure Paths are MUCH riper territory to explore in this format.
Could you give a couple examples of Adventure Paths you feel would adapt quite well to a CRPG format?

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James Jacobs wrote:Could you give a couple examples of Adventure Paths you feel would adapt quite well to a CRPG format?Aenigma wrote:I really like Pathfinder: Kingmaker. It is a great game. I really wish Owlcat Games would make more Pathfinder CRPG in the future. Did Paizo sell them the right to produce games based on every published adventure path? Or they are allowed to produce only this one, and if they want to make more games, they have to negotiate an agreement with Paizo again? I ask this because I really wish to see a CRPG(which means, not an online game) based on Thornkeep and the Emerald Spire!There's certainly an opportunity for more games like Kingmaker in the future, but Emerald Spire is probably at the bottom of the list of adaptations I want to see happen to tell the truth. The Adventure Paths are MUCH riper territory to explore in this format.
All of them?

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I want to ask many questions regarding Starfinder but it seems that you are not the appropriate person to ask. Can you tell me whom I should ask?
Rob's my Creative Director counterpart on the Starfinder side of things but he's not as active on these boards, so you might be out of luck. Sorry.

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Are there any horror movies that you watch during Halloween?
Whatever new ones are out. Which is the same for any month, really. AKA: I watch so many horror movies all the time that Halloween doesn't really see much of a change for me, and I'm generally looking for stuff I've not seen before and don't really have a tradition of watching a specific movie on a specific day of the year.