Creative Director
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3) Against good or evil Pcs? how it was?
4) well, I mean devas, planetar, solar, hound shield trumphet and star archons have special habilities but mostly they use swords(maces or whatever) or/and clerical spells.
are there in bestiary 3 or another book more variated angels or archons? like the lantern archon?(my favorite celestial by the way)
3) Against good PCs; they were summoned by an evil wizard and sent against the PCs so the wizard could mess with the PCs' minds. Fight was quite amusing.
4) There are new good-aligned outsiders in Bestiary 3. And using weapons isn't really a fighter thing as much as it is a human-shaped creature thing. As for the clerical spells... allowing them to cast cleric spells helps to make them feel more divine in nature, I guess.
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Dear Director J:
Why won't Erik Mona return my calls?
M.
James,
Assuming of course that Mythic Rules end up as an actual book, what are the chances of the base classes continuing in a useful and interesting manner much like they do pre-mythic, as opposed to the bigger numbers and more times per day type stuff that ELH gave us?
Also, and in the same vein, since it seems almost definite that there will be a new cap, will there thus be new capstones?
2) Have you ever heard the H.P Lovecraft inspired songs by Metallica? Call of Ktulu, The Thing That Should Not Be(about Dagon) and All Nightmare Long(about The Hounds of Tindalos).
Hey James a few questions...
1) How much of the non-adventure articles from the Rise of the Runelords AP compliation will be included? While I like the adventures...I really love those articles more.
2) When you run a AP do you run side plots/adventures that does not have much to do with the AP? I find as a player and a GM that being focused on one overarcing plot to be rather dull.
3) Is there any chance we'll se Sandpoint or Riddleport detailed in a Campaign setting book or a player's guide?
I also want to thank you for convimcing me to buy up the APs. I have been buying them up and everyone of them as been of some use to me.
Now I am thinking of buying up the module line...sigh. I need more bookselves.
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Quick question (and hope you don't mind if it's come up before)--
Over on the 'Cleric of Aroden vs Cleric of No-one' thread, I've been convinced of the correctness of the official Pathfinder Society/Golarion play position, that Clerics have one Patron deity (one and only one-- part of the class, I get that). This being a world & society where many Gods & Goddess really do exist, everyone believes in them and knows they exist, etc-- I am of the feeling that a Cleric, while being firmly devoted to his/her patron first and foremost, would still offer some veneration and respect to some of the other Gods & Goddesses (particularly ones whose portfolios still touch on his/her life-- also particularly thinking of this for Good Clerics, each following a Good Deity, and generally honoring other Good Deities in this way).
Some examples of such behavior:
A Cleric of Sarenrae who occasionally attends services for Milani because the Cleric has very close ties to friends & allies who serve Milani and great respect for that Goddess, since the Cleric and her friends are engaged in rebellion against an evil ruler.
A Cleric of Iomedae or Sarenrae, who offers prayers to Erastil before going on a hunt, and leaves little offerings at Erastil's shrine after a successful one.
A Cleric of Sarenrae (same situation as the first example) accepting a task that came to her through Milani's priesthood (or even, along with her friends, directly from Milani)-- presuming of course that it's a task Sarenrae would definitely be in favor of her doing.
A Cleric of another Good God who consistently works closely with Desna's followers in protecting travelers, and who still says the occasional prayer to, or leaves the occasional offering for, Desna (or a Cleric of Desna who does the same for the other Good Gods).
A Cleric of Sarenrae or Milani, who likes celebrating with Shelyn's followers after a successful adventure.
Basic question: Presuming of course that the Cleric is still fully dedicated to his/her patron, does not neglect his/her patron in any way, and isn't venerating any deities that his/her deity is offended with-- are these sorts of things okay for a Good Cleric to do with respect to other Good deities besides the Patron, without endangering his/her Cleric status or angering his/her patron? If some of them are okay, but some other such actions aren't, which ones are out?
After achieving a more-or-less consensus on this much over on that thread, I'd just like to know if my conclusions here fit within the designer's/creator's vision of the world (and, presumably, if they fit for little personality touches when playing a character in official PFS Play).
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What are your thoughts of Paladin becoming Prestige Class instead of Base Class?That's how I wanted to do paladins in Pathifnder in the first place. But we got cold feet due to the desire to maintain backwards compatibility.
But forcing would-be paladins to qualify for the class by proving their adherence to law and good BEFORE they take their first paladin level is very very appealing.
You have read The Deed of Paksenarrion? Elizabeth Moon do exactly that in her trilogy.
Very good books.- - -
The "paladin" problem isn't a problem with the paladin class at all. It is a problem with players that don't want to limit their play stile to adapt to the group. I had problems with a player that was the specular example of problem player.
"I want to play a Cthululesque cleric." "No, the party is good/neutral and the campaign is not set to accommodate a insane follower of the elder Gods." "Then a cleric of Talona or Jubilex." "No." "Ok, grumble, grumble, I will play a cleric of the god of glyph and runes."
and then he did go on playing it as a mad cleric and converted to Jubilex. And his later wizard was another mad guy. The only character I know that got a worse sentence after speaking in his defence in a trial. He was already meant to be turned into a dumb animal to learn what nature was. After speaking the judges sentence was burned, then the ashes sprinkled with holy water and buried in a stone coffin in the more barren land they could find to reduce the chances of contamination.
What you would do with a player like that? He is a nice guy but we ended banning him from our RPGs.
James, do you like The Deed of Paksenarrion? I love it, and consider it necessary reading for anyone who wants to be a Pally.
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I have a proposition for you, James. What if a neutral version of the Paladin/Anti-Paladin with similar crunch was made that could be a Law supporter, Balance supporter, or Chaos supporter? Then, we could eliminate the entire Paladin class, combine the good, evil, and neutral versions into one class, and call it the Champion. Using this new class, you could still play the classic highly strict LG Paladin, but you could also be NG or CG, or neutral if you wished, and the class itself wouldn't actually be called the Paladin, so you could reserve that name for LG characters in Golarion if you wanted to. This way, the class would be much, much more flexible, meaning that you could now play with the class features without having to have a very specific morality and set of goals, but at the same time you didn't actually say any alignment Paladin, so Paladins can remain firmly lawful good.
Do you like this?
Good idea Kelsey, but
I don't think it'll happen.
But hey, you never know.
I think it may happen someday. It maintains reverse compatibility do to maintaining the LG options and features, it just adds more flexibility to the class so it can be played by someone who doesn't want or can't handle the LG code, or in a party where a Paladin would be disruptive.
Basic question: Presuming of course that the Cleric is still fully dedicated to his/her patron, does not neglect...
IANJ, but Father Zantus of Sandpoint actually presides over a cathedral that is home to six deities, despite being the only cleric and venerating Desna. Zantus presumably attends and leads the congregation in service to whatever deity is relevant to the town's needs. This heavily implies that cross-worship between good and allied deities is canonical.
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Hello. Enjoyed lurking your thread on and off. A ton of useful information.
I have one curiosity. I'm not sure if this has been answered before.
Is there any chance for a 'Incarnum'-like conversion? Tho the system had it's fair share of problems (some would even say it was sub-par), I really enjoyed it's versatility.
Thank you!
I think it may happen someday. It maintains reverse compatibility do to maintaining the LG options and features, it just adds more flexibility to the class so it can be played by someone who doesn't want or can't handle the LG code, or in a party where a Paladin would be disruptive.
The reason the paladin has the "good" (pun intended) class features is because the code is a big minus, and champion would have to be a champion of something, thus require multiple ethical codes and different class features for each alignment, And "champion" sounds like it should be any non-neutral alignment, or any Except True neutral. Though I could see a champion of balance, but that would be way more disruptive than the paladin.
There was a prestige class that loosened the paladin code (The Gray Guard) and it was really abused, and cheapened the paladin.
And this Champion class would cheapen the importance and uniqueness of the Paladin class.
Hence way I said "I don't think it'll happen."
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I think it may happen someday. It maintains reverse compatibility do to maintaining the LG options and features, it just adds more flexibility to the class so it can be played by someone who doesn't want or can't handle the LG code, or in a party where a Paladin would be disruptive.
Afaik, Unearthed Arcana (3.5) handles the other 3 extreme alignments as an option for paladins (new Codes of Conduct included).
You can use it as a guide to adjusting the paladin's auras for homebrew CG/LE versions.Future archetypes would be nice (I'd be somewhat interested in a CG paladin of 'freedom'), but I doubt they will ever happen.
IANJ, but Father Zantus of Sandpoint actually presides over a cathedral that is home to six deities, despite being the only cleric and venerating Desna. Zantus presumably attends and leads the congregation in service to whatever deity is relevant to the town's needs. This heavily implies that cross-worship between good and allied deities is canonical.
You beat me to it. Given that James is the architect of Sandpoint, and has said it's his favorite place in Golarion (or at least, the place he'd be most inclined to spend his vacation or take up residence, if he had to live in the world he designs), I think we can be confident he'll agree with Finn that good clerics do not have to follow the Mosaic deity's First Commandment, at least in its broadest interpretation. (It's worth noting that the King James translation's "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" doesn't necessarily preclude having other gods after the one issuing the commandment, as long as that god's primacy is recognized and respected.)
I incorporated that idea into my RotRL character, who, being a wizard, has more flexibility than a cleric would in choosing who to worship:
"Kavren is nominally a worshipper of Nethys, but he's wary of the god's capricious nature. It's one thing to thank Nethys for the gift of magic, quite another to actually attract his attention by praying to him for aid -- Kavren will do the latter only under extreme duress. He does keep a small shrine to the god of magic in a corner of his sleeping chamber, with a three-quarter profile variant of Nethys' mask symbol proclaiming his allegiance to the light aspect of the god's dual nature. He also reveres Sarenrae and Shelyn, frequently attending their services at the cathedral, and on rarer occasions those of Desna, Gozreh, and Erastil at the cathedral, and Irori at the House of Blue Stones.
In his earlier life in Magnimar, he also attended services to Iomedae on a semi-regular basis. Like many Magnimarians, he sees the paladin-goddess as the rightful heir of Aroden, and her church as the Chelish people's best hope against the diabolism into which Korvosa and Cheliax itself have fallen. If it were up to him, Iomedae would have a shrine in the Sandpoint Cathedral in place of Abadar's; Kavren feels that the latter god's rigidity and amoral legalism do little to advance the general welfare, and Abadar's willingness to treat with Asmodeus makes him unworthy of worship in the young wizard's eyes. However, he's careful not to discuss his opinion of the Master of the First Vault with Gaven Deverin, the Korvaski siblings, or anyone from the Scarnetti or Kaijitsu clans apart from Ameiko, who not only shares that opinion but is happy to express it in far more colorful terms than Kavren would ever permit himself to use."
Now, what interests me more about this topic is the possibility of something like the Age of Worms AP's Ebon Triad arising in Golarion. In Greyhawk, the Triad sought to unify the cults and, ultimately, godheads of Hextor, Vecna, and Erythnul; the Golarion equivalent would most likely be formed by heretical clerics of Zon-Kuthon, Norgorber, and Lamashtu. (Of course, knowing Norgorber, the Norgorberites in the group wouldn't be heretics at all, just orthodox followers of the Reaper of Reputation seeking more power for their cult by putting one over on the followers of two of its rivals.) What say you, oh mighty dinosaur? ;-)
>.>
<.<
Awesome.
What should I call a wolf-like subrace of Catfolk?
I don't know what you should call them, but you could call them Wolfen. Or Lupins, if they're generally good-aligned, found in Mystara, and don't mind being mistaken for flowers. By the way, I have something for you. Read the bottom of my profile and e-mail me.
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Creative Director
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James,
Assuming of course that Mythic Rules end up as an actual book, what are the chances of the base classes continuing in a useful and interesting manner much like they do pre-mythic, as opposed to the bigger numbers and more times per day type stuff that ELH gave us?Also, and in the same vein, since it seems almost definite that there will be a new cap, will there thus be new capstones?
2) Have you ever heard the H.P Lovecraft inspired songs by Metallica? Call of Ktulu, The Thing That Should Not Be(about Dagon) and All Nightmare Long(about The Hounds of Tindalos).
If the mythic rules make the current classes... aka the current game... irrelevant and lame, then we'll have done something terribly wrong. In any event, I'm not currently ready to talk more about mythic rules and how they might fix epic rules, because that's a huge topic that I'm not eager to dive into in the format of a messageboard conversation.
2) I've probably heard them, but as a rule I'm not a big fan at all of pop culture Lovecraft-inspired songs.
Not knowing if you're serious or not, I'll assume you're serious and say, "Probably because he's busy, but I'm not Erik so I can't say for sure."Dear Director J:
Why won't Erik Mona return my calls?
M.
And miss the opportunity to go for the fun answer? Is all this snow getting you down?
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Creative Director
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1) How much of the non-adventure articles from the Rise of the Runelords AP compliation will be included? While I like the adventures...I really love those articles more.
2) When you run a AP do you run side plots/adventures that does not have much to do with the AP? I find as a player and a GM that being focused on one overarcing plot to be rather dull.
3) Is there any chance we'll se Sandpoint or Riddleport detailed in a Campaign setting book or a player's guide?
I also want to thank you for convimcing me to buy up the APs. I have been buying them up and everyone of them as been of some use to me.
Now I am thinking of buying up the module line...sigh. I need more bookselves.
1) I've answered this elsewhere, but I'm not sure where, so here it is again. The Anniversary Edition of Runelords will reprint all of the Sandpoint article, a much shorter summary version of the Magnimar article (there'll be a 64 page book on that city available at that time so if you want to do Magnimar stuff beyond what's in the adventure, that book will do much better than anything we can put in the Runelords hardcover), a somewhat larger article about Turtleback Ferry, a revised and shorter article about Thassilon and Shalast, pretty much all of the magic items, and about half a dozen (maybe a little more) monsters culled from the AP that haven't yet been updated to Pathfinder and including 1 brand new monster we've never statted up before in the first place.
That means we will NOT be including things like the fiction, the deity articles, the stone giant and dragon articles, the Varisia gazetteer, or the Magic of Thassilon article (apart from perhaps a few tidbits from that article put into the appendix).
2) I sometimes do side plots or side adventures that don't have much to do with the main plot, depending on how I judge player interest. And whether or not as a GM focusing on the plot to be dull is dull for the players isn't fair to say... but I do know that before, when we've published adventures that aren't significant parts of the overall AP plotline, the customers and readers of the AP have raised hell; adventures like that are NOT popular among an AP. They're very VERY much the responsibility of the individual GM to do if they and their players want such.
3) Yes. Actually, Riddleport's already been somewhat detailed in a player's guide.
AND: MORE BOOKSHELVES!!!!!
Can there please be no more paladin shenanigans?
I have a less whiny question as well... When BBEGs are built do rules get bent a little bit? Unless I'm reading the rules incorrectly or disassembling the BBEG badly...
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Creative Director
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Basic question: Presuming of course that the Cleric is still fully dedicated to his/her patron, does not neglect his/her patron in any way, and isn't venerating any deities that his/her deity is offended with-- are these sorts of things okay for a Good Cleric to do with respect to other Good deities besides the Patron, without endangering his/her Cleric status or angering his/her patron? If some of them are okay, but some other such actions aren't, which ones are out?
After achieving a more-or-less consensus on this much over on that thread, I'd just like to know if my conclusions here fit within the designer's/creator's vision of the world (and, presumably, if they fit for little personality touches when playing a character in official PFS Play).
What you're describing is the way an oracle works. The cleric and the oracle are already close enough in role and abilities that I really would rather see them more different than more similar, and keeping the cleric to one deity and the oracle to the pantheon worship is one such solution.
A cleric can certainly respect multiple deities, and can certianly work with other churches, but what makes a cleric a cleric is the fact that they have one god.
And again... this is ONLY the official ruling for Golarion as in print, and as in the Pathfinder Society. You're absolutely free to revise or change this for your games, but since I'm not talking about those games and I'm only talking about baseline Golarion... I'm not interested in talking about revisions to how clerics work regarding number of deities worshiped.
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You have read The Deed of Paksenarrion? Elizabeth Moon do exactly that in her trilogy.
Very good books.- - -
The "paladin" problem isn't a problem with the paladin class at all. It is a problem with players that don't want to limit their play stile to adapt to the group. I had problems with a player that was the specular example of problem player.
"I want to play a Cthululesque cleric." "No, the party is good/neutral and the campaign is not set to accommodate a insane follower of the elder Gods." "Then a cleric of Talona or Jubilex." "No." "Ok, grumble, grumble, I will play a cleric of the god of glyph and runes."
and then he did go on playing it as a mad cleric and converted to Jubilex. And his later wizard was another mad guy. The only character I know that got a worse sentence after speaking in his defence in a trial. He was already meant to be turned into a dumb animal to learn what nature was. After speaking the judges sentence was burned, then the ashes sprinkled with holy water and buried in a stone coffin in the more barren land they could find to reduce the chances of contamination.What you would do with a player like that? He is a nice guy but we ended banning him from our RPGs.
I haven't read The Deed of Paksenarrion.
Players who deliberately play characters who don't fit into campaigns are one of my banes. Know how our player's guides always list semi-spoilers about an Adventure Path and make suggestions on what player characters would be good choices and offer traits that give you bonuses that will help in the upcoming AP while sneaking in character background flavor that helps to align your character to the AP's themes and storyline? I've been doing things like that in campaigns I run for the past 20 years or so. It works REALLY well at helping players play characters that match the expectations of the game, because playing a character that isn't right for a campaign is lame. I've been lucky in that in my time as a GM, I've never really had a troublemaking/rabble-rousing player who specifically builds characters to annoy me or to make the experience less fun for the other players or to make the campaign not work; I've had plenty of players whose sense of humor prevents them from taking the campaign as seriously as I would prefer, but I can live with that. If a player did something like what your player did to you to me... hmmm. I'd warn him that chances are VERY VERY GOOD that, as a result of playing a character that's so inappropriate for the campaign, I'd talk with the player about revising his character and would tell him his character just flat out doesn't work for the game I'm running. And if he didn't change, I'd either ask the player to leave the game (if it looks like he's doing this merely to be a jerk), or I'll take a session to "resolve" the situation by having his character reap the just deserts of his inappropriate actions.
But if the player was a serial offender... yeah. I'd kick him out of the group.
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Creative Director
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Hi.
There are rage powers that work only once per rage, but in level 17 the barbarian gain tireless rage, so he can end the rage (free action) and start it again (another free action)
basically he can use those "once per rage" in every round, was that intentional when designing the class?
I'm not sure if it was intentional or not... but the barbarian's 17th level. I'm okay with that. If the wizard's casting miracle, I don't see a problem with letting the barbarian effectively using his once-per-rage powers all the time.
James,
With all this excessive discussion of Paladins, is there a statistical probability that they will eventually supplant your loathing of dwarves?
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Creative Director
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I have a proposition for you, James. What if a neutral version of the Paladin/Anti-Paladin with similar crunch was made that could be a Law supporter, Balance supporter, or Chaos supporter? Then, we could eliminate the entire Paladin class, combine the good, evil, and neutral versions into one class, and call it the Champion. Using this new class, you could still play the classic highly strict LG Paladin, but you could also be NG or CG, or neutral if you wished, and the class itself wouldn't actually be called the Paladin, so you could reserve that name for LG characters in Golarion if you wanted to. This way, the class would be much, much more flexible, meaning that you could now play with the class features without having to have a very specific morality and set of goals, but at the same time you didn't actually say any alignment Paladin, so Paladins can remain firmly lawful good.
Do you like this?
Pathfinder and Golarion aren't democracies.
A fair amount (as in most) of the decisions we make for the game are based on player feedback, but once we feel we've made the right decision, we generally don't want to change things again.
The class you're looking for is not a paladin in my opinion, since a paladin is, by definition, lawful good. What you want to play is a neutral good or chaotic good crusader, ranger, fighter, cleric, inquisitor, monk, or oracle who happens to have lots of religion and belongs to a knighthood or organization. Those are ALL viable and cool character choices. They don't require revisions to how the paladin class works, and in my opinion are lessened and marginalized and disrespected if one WERE to just say "there's a paladin of every alignment."
The paladin class is not MEANT to be flexible in that regard. By design. Most who like paladins like them BECAUSE of that rigid nature, that sort of "elite" feeling of "I'm as lawful and as good as it gets, so I have special powers you can't have!"
If you're looking to me for permission to change those rules in your game, you've ALWAYS had that permission.
If you're looking for "official" support, the best I can do is again point you to those articles about variant paladins I wrote for Dragon #310 and #312... with the caveat that even though I wrote them, I'm not a huge fan of them.
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Creative Director
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I think it may happen someday. It maintains reverse compatibility do to maintaining the LG options and features, it just adds more flexibility to the class so it can be played by someone who doesn't want or can't handle the LG code, or in a party where a Paladin would be disruptive.
Such an event would likely require myself, Erik Mona, Jason Bulmahn, and a few other key employees at Paizo to no longer be making the decisions for the game. Since all of us are pretty firmly in the camp of "Paladins are lawful good."
Jason, in fact, DID tinker with mechanics for non-LG paladins as an archetype, and after working on it for a while, came to the realization that the actual mechanics just don't work. The paladin's powers can be "mirrored" once for the antipaladin, but you can't mirror them 7 more times, basically. And each time you DO mirror them, you dilute the core point of the paladin.
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This book by SGG does non-Paladin holy warrior pretty well. If a player of mine wishes to be a paladin without all the hard work that goes into the alignment, then I'll just have them play this :)
I've always been of the opinion that paladin's abilities have to be amazing due to the alignment restrictions. They really are one of the best classes in the game, and due to the hard time roleplaying them the abilities need to make it worth it.
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Creative Director
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Basic question: Presuming of course that the Cleric is still fully dedicated to his/her patron, does not neglect...IANJ, but Father Zantus of Sandpoint actually presides over a cathedral that is home to six deities, despite being the only cleric and venerating Desna. Zantus presumably attends and leads the congregation in service to whatever deity is relevant to the town's needs. This heavily implies that cross-worship between good and allied deities is canonical.
That's an excellent example.
The Sandpoint Cathedral is a pantheon-style house of worship; it has shrines for six allied deities inside it, and as such worshipers of ANY of those six churches are particularly welcome, and any of those worshipers can treat the Sandpoint Cathedral as their deity's house of worship.
The current tender of that cathedral is a cleric who worships one of those six deities—in this case, Desna.
He serves as religious adviser for the town, and that includes giving advice to all sorts of other religions. And the acolytes in the cathedral may or may not be clerics of Desna, but they'd still be subservient to Father Zantus. None of that changes the fact that Zantus is a cleric of Desna who reveres her above all other deities and thus gets his power from her (likewise for whatever deities his acolytes worship).
Ah, what's the point? I don't even use alignment in my games, and I almost always play LG in others, so I'm mostly just standing on principle. You said yourself that Paladins are the most disruptive class there is. I'm just trying to alleviate that.
James, will we ever see a compendium of the extra rules from the APs for those of us who don't buy the APs published?
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Creative Director
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Hello. Enjoyed lurking your thread on and off. A ton of useful information.
I have one curiosity. I'm not sure if this has been answered before.
Is there any chance for a 'Incarnum'-like conversion? Tho the system had it's fair share of problems (some would even say it was sub-par), I really enjoyed it's versatility.
Thank you!
Not really a chance, if only because there's not really any fans of the Incarnum system at Paizo. When that book came out, I saw it as an unnecessary expansion of the rules into an unnecessary venue—it's not a book I would have ever chosen to publish, had I been making those decisions.
Furthermore, continually expanding and splitting the PC options is not good for the game. It spreads things too thin, makes it too hard to support your own publications, and starts to get overwhelming.
We published the Advanced Player's Guide, Ultimate Combat, and Ultimate Magic as soon as possible BECAUSE we wanted to get all the significant class options out there at the start of Pathfinder's lifecycle, so that going forward we could support those options not only with expansions, but so we could use those options in our adventures and supplements.
So... for the immediate future (and probably the mid-term future), nope; no Incarnum-like plans for Pathfinder.
That's what the GMG does.
And I suspect the GMG2 will be coming out next year with all the other subsystems.
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There's going to be a GMG 2?
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Creative Director
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...being a wizard, has more flexibility than a cleric would in choosing who to worship...
This is something I think a lot of folks could learn from.
There are, after all, 19 base classes to choose from. Of those 19, none of them are hard-coded to be atheists—any of those 19 are free to decide to be religious. Of those 19, only ONE has to be a single-deity religion character—the cleric—and that character gains special powers tied to that fact as a result (domains).
If you want to play a character who worships more than one deity... those other 18 choices are there for you. And in fact, we designed one specifically for that purpose (the oracle).
It hasn't been announced.
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Creative Director
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Can there please be no more paladin shenanigans?
I have a less whiny question as well... When BBEGs are built do rules get bent a little bit? Unless I'm reading the rules incorrectly or disassembling the BBEG badly... ** spoiler omitted ** Am I just disassembling him wrong or are BBEGs sometimes tweaked to make them more impressive?
If that BBEG had too many skill ranks, that's an error. That said... an additional +1 or +2 isn't going to be something the players notice in game, so it's not a big deal.
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James,
With all this excessive discussion of Paladins, is there a statistical probability that they will eventually supplant your loathing of dwarves?
First of all... my "loathing" of dwarves isn't actually as immense as folks seem to think. Like many things on the internet, it's been kind of blown out of proportion. Me saying something like "dwarves are my least favorite core race" is not the same as me saying "dwarves are the worst race."
And second of all... I've always liked paladins the least. I've always felt that they're too disruptive to party cohesion. More so than evil characters. I still let players in my groups play them, though.
Yes, James, and that is why I am trying to help make the Paladin class less disruptive.
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Creative Director
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James, will we ever see a compendium of the extra rules from the APs for those of us who don't buy the APs published?
Not as such. What you will see (and have already seen) is us picking up those extra rules now and then to include in hardcover books, which is what we did with the haunt and chase rules.
It takes years, though. And in some cases, those extra rules will never be reprinted.
And that DOES mean if you want those extra rules as soon as they come out, you'll need to buy the APs. Which is, honestly, kind of by design. We know that APs aren't for everyone, but we also know that by adding additional content in the form of support articles, new rules, and the like, we broaden the appeal of that product without diminishing the appeal as an AP for those customers who like APs. And that means more people buy the product than would if we ONLY did APs in them.
Which makes Paizo more money, which is part of the reason Paizo's publishing stuff in the first place. It's not the ENTIRE reason, of course... but it's not an insignificant one.
James, how do I make a ghost ship full of low HD undead capable of operating the ship using Pathfinder RAW?
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It hasn't been announced.
Nor will it be.
With the exception of our Bestiaries, we aren't all that interested in traveling down the route of publishing direct sequels to our books. We could well do a new hardcover some day that collects lots of GM tools or something, and thematically has a similar role to the GameMastery Guide... but I can tell you right now that it's very unlikely that such a book would be called "GameMastery Guide 2."
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James, will we ever see a compendium of the extra rules from the APs for those of us who don't buy the APs published?Not as such. What you will see (and have already seen) is us picking up those extra rules now and then to include in hardcover books, which is what we did with the haunt and chase rules.
It takes years, though. And in some cases, those extra rules will never be reprinted.
And that DOES mean if you want those extra rules as soon as they come out, you'll need to buy the APs. Which is, honestly, kind of by design. We know that APs aren't for everyone, but we also know that by adding additional content in the form of support articles, new rules, and the like, we broaden the appeal of that product without diminishing the appeal as an AP for those customers who like APs. And that means more people buy the product than would if we ONLY did APs in them.
Which makes Paizo more money, which is part of the reason Paizo's publishing stuff in the first place. It's not the ENTIRE reason, of course... but it's not an insignificant one.
Well, when you complete all six APs in a path, do you repackage them in a single book? I buy RPG books sporadically, so a subscription wouldn't work for me, but I just might buy APs if they were re-released in a collected edition at the end of the path. I'd start with Hook Mountain. That one looks awesome, I must admit.
It hasn't been announced.Nor will it be.
With the exception of our Bestiaries, we aren't all that interested in traveling down the route of publishing direct sequels to our books. We could well do a new hardcover some day that collects lots of GM tools or something, and thematically has a similar role to the GameMastery Guide... but I can tell you right now that it's very unlikely that such a book would be called "GameMastery Guide 2."
Curses! Wrong again. I need to reboot my Crystal Ball.
It hasn't been announced.Nor will it be.
With the exception of our Bestiaries, we aren't all that interested in traveling down the route of publishing direct sequels to our books. We could well do a new hardcover some day that collects lots of GM tools or something, and thematically has a similar role to the GameMastery Guide... but I can tell you right now that it's very unlikely that such a book would be called "GameMastery Guide 2."
I don't care what it's called. If it's a hardcover, you're probably getting my money. So far I have all 8, and Advanced Rage Guide is at the top of my "to buy" list.
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Well, when you complete all six APs in a path, do you repackage them in a single book? I buy RPG books sporadically, so a subscription wouldn't work for me, but I just might buy APs if they were re-released in a collected edition at the end of the path. I'd start with Hook Mountain. That one looks awesome, I must admit.James, will we ever see a compendium of the extra rules from the APs for those of us who don't buy the APs published?Not as such. What you will see (and have already seen) is us picking up those extra rules now and then to include in hardcover books, which is what we did with the haunt and chase rules.
It takes years, though. And in some cases, those extra rules will never be reprinted.
And that DOES mean if you want those extra rules as soon as they come out, you'll need to buy the APs. Which is, honestly, kind of by design. We know that APs aren't for everyone, but we also know that by adding additional content in the form of support articles, new rules, and the like, we broaden the appeal of that product without diminishing the appeal as an AP for those customers who like APs. And that means more people buy the product than would if we ONLY did APs in them.
Which makes Paizo more money, which is part of the reason Paizo's publishing stuff in the first place. It's not the ENTIRE reason, of course... but it's not an insignificant one.
I know I'm not James but...
This has been talked about at length over multiple threads.
Try using your search-fu before making JJ repeat himself.
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Yes, James, and that is why I am trying to help make the Paladin class less disruptive.
My solution for making the paladin class less disruptive would be one of the following:
1) Make it a prestige class.
2) Cut it from the game entirely. Replace it with an entirely new class called something like a "Templar" or a "Crusader" that perhaps had similar powers (a divine-casting martial character who gains abilities based on his alignment or deity), but I would NOT call it a paladin. Because, as far as the game is concerned, such a class is not a paladin.
3) Keep the paladin unchanged, but design 8 other classes for the 8 other alignments. This was my solution for the "problem" back in 3.5 D&D. But in the end, it wasn't really a solution.
The truth is that it doesn't matter WHAT alignment restrictions you put on the paladin or paladin-like class. Once you have a class whose got a significantly detailed code of conduct that MUST be followed or the powers go away, the type of disruptive player who sees that as the rules giving him permission to play a disruptive character will play the class anyway. Doesn't matter what alignment you allow at all. And if you don't make alignment an issue at all... then why do you want to play a paladin in the first place?
In the end, the paladin's only "more disruptive" than, say, a code of conduct requiring adherence to any other alignment, ONLY because the paladin's been doing this for decades. It's had a lot of time for disruptive players to figure it out and take a shine to it.
2) Cut it from the game entirely. Replace it with an entirely new class called something like a "Templar" or a "Crusader" that perhaps had similar powers (a divine-casting martial character who gains abilities based on his alignment or deity), but I would NOT call it a paladin. Because, as far as the game is concerned, such a class is not a paladin.
That is basically what my suggestion does. It uses the name Champion, and I recommended Paladin as a specific term for LG Champions in world.
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James, how do I make a ghost ship full of low HD undead capable of operating the ship using Pathfinder RAW?
As a GM?
You could certainly just wait to get a copy of "Isles of the Shackles," and/or the Skull & Shackles Adventure Path, which will have stats for undead pirates and a fair amount of ghost ship type stuff.
Otherwise... the way you'd do this is by picking whatever low HD undead you want, giving them pirate-themed skills (perhaps with a single level of rogue), and there ya go. The skeletal champion and juju zombie templates are great for making low-level undead pirates. Alternatively, you could just reskin the dragur from Bestiary 2 so that instead of wearing a viking helmet it's wearing a pirate hat.
If what you actually want is a ghostly ship that's incorporeal with ghostly pirates on board... then you just need to make some pirates and give them the ghost template. But incorporeal is a VERY hard thing to pull off at low level. Some ideas are just fundamentally not good for certain levels of play. A truly ghostly ship crewed by ghost pirates, for example, is not a low-level encounter and shouldn't really be wasted as one.
But a single shipwreck haunted by a ghost pirate? That's a fun low-level encounter—I put one into "Souls for Smuggler's Shiv."
Reading between the lines, of course, my answer to the standard question of "How do I design this unusual encounter?" is this:
Read adventures. Read a LOT of adventures. They're an excellent way to learn how to build encounters and adventures, and even if you don't run them as-written, you can always just take single encounters out of an adventure to run in your game. For example... the ghost pirate in the shipwreck I mention above from "Souls for Smuggler's Shiv" can just as easily appear in ANY adventure—it's pretty self-contained.
Just as reading lots of novels makes you a better writer, and just as watching a lot of movies will make you a better film-maker, reading lots of adventures makes you a better GM.