Creative Director
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Something for dwarves. One thing I've actually done is have them more nature themed. Imagine them being like an "old man of the forest" type of character. Maybe a less cantankerous version of Erastil. Like, imagine the lighthearted yet serious personality of Gandalf, and make him a bit more about the serene harmony of nature. How would that sound as a dwarf idea?
Sounds like it's kinda stepping on the gnome's toes.
Something for dwarves. One thing I've actually done is have them more nature themed. Imagine them being like an "old man of the forest" type of character. Maybe a less cantankerous version of Erastil. Like, imagine the lighthearted yet serious personality of Gandalf, and make him a bit more about the serene harmony of nature. How would that sound as a dwarf idea?Sounds like it's kinda stepping on the gnome's toes.
Really? I never got that vibe about gnomes. I always saw them as more childlike prankster fey than kindly grandfather of the forest. Partially blame Kender and WoW for that.
Mr. Jacobs,
Greetings from a fellow Washington resident! (Eastern side, military life has kept me away however)
What Colossal-sized "miniature" would you most like to see produced for your personnal use?
Also, this for your amusement: http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2qzp2?Funny-things-your-characters-have-said
Hey James,
How exactly do you pronounce Andoran? an-door-en or an-der-an?
1) Is Desna a social butterfly?
2) Would pirates be likely to worship Dagon as a patron?
3) Would pirates be likely to worship Cthulhu as a patron?
4) The Numeria book mentions that hobgoblins can be found there. Does that mean they use the same technology as the rest of Golarion, or are they T-Te-Technogoblins!!!?.
Do you still run your homebrew ever or have any intention of doing so?
Hi James!
Hope the GenCon crush is treating you at least tolerably… I imagine it's stressful.
To my question: You raised an interesting point a few questions ago about how pen and paper games, for some reason, are treated differently when it comes to being able to explore adult themes.
1. Why do you think that is?
2. Is there a way to stretch those boundaries, and if so, is that a good or a bad thing for the hobby, do you think?
3. I wonder if being on the top gives you guys less leeway? (I'm thinking of some of the themes in Chaosium products as I type this, although I'm not sure they go that much farther than Paizo does).
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Creative Director
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Really? I never got that vibe about gnomes. I always saw them as more childlike prankster fey than kindly grandfather of the forest. Partially blame Kender and WoW for that.Something for dwarves. One thing I've actually done is have them more nature themed. Imagine them being like an "old man of the forest" type of character. Maybe a less cantankerous version of Erastil. Like, imagine the lighthearted yet serious personality of Gandalf, and make him a bit more about the serene harmony of nature. How would that sound as a dwarf idea?Sounds like it's kinda stepping on the gnome's toes.
The "Childlike prankster" is more regular D&D gnome. For our gnomes, we deliberately tied them to the First World to make them more into nature. They've already got built in nature powers, after all, like being able to speak to animals.
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Creative Director
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1) I think you might be misreading it... I wrote it last year and don't recall why I would have given it two vault seeds off the top of my head, unless I wanted it to have a spare to try to cause problems in the future.Just in case, I'll quote the relevant sections (it intrigues me, because a wayward vault seed is big news, obviously).
Spoiler:"When the rest of its kind moved on, Iluchtewhar retreated to a small network of caverns with a pair of stolen Vault Seeds. Intending to build a vault of its own to raise an army to fight the aboleths, Iluchtewhar activated a seed. The seed didn't create a vault - it erupted into an enormous tangle of crystalline tendrils that snaked out through the surrounding stone. When they struck the Vault Keeper, the tendrils entrapped it, and the crystal lanced upward through the ground, penetrating thousands of feet of solid stone until it erupted from the surface - only then did it halt its explosive transformation into the Emerald Spire."
From page 143. Iluchtewhar definitely seems to have only activated one seed when he had two with him at the time, so the other should presumably still be down there, possibly still on his person.1) Is it an accident of editing, a hitherto-unnoticed secret...?
2) In either case, how big is a Vault Seed, exactly? Readily portable?
3) When activated, does each individual seed have a pre-set "environment" that they seek to create, or is it modular for the Vault Builder activating it?
4) Is it an outright artifact, and if so, would you judge it as a DM-reliant artifact, or one that might actually see some sort of rules?
5) Iluchtewhar obviously didn't have the ability to control the Vault Seed once activated. Could mythic PCs control them, perhaps? Or is it only something that a Vault Builder could do?
6) Would the creation of a Vault be a nice point for a Moment of Ascension to mythic status, in your opinion?
7) Would returning a stolen Vault Seed to an actual Vault Builder in your opinion be an appropriate mythic quest? In the case of the Emerald Spire, it would, after all, entail going from 1st level up to the early/mid-teens if they started at the very top of the Spire and worked their way down.
8) When you say they have to be on/in an Earthlike planet, do you mean in terms of size, or in terms of "be on the Material Plane, on/beneath the surface of a planet on said plane" and so on?
1) There are no other seeds down there. That is indeed an error. Likely something I'd intended to include, but decided otherwise and then the error crept through development. THat said, there are other vault seeds out there. Include it in your game if you want! :-) I suspect the reason I cut it was simple—no room to stat it up, and if there was one in there... it would need stats.
2) Pineapple sized.
3) Unrevealed.
4) The vault seeds are artifacts, yes. It should have rules.
5) At this point, I"d say it's something only a Vault Builder could do. A PC (mythic or not) could figure it out perhaps, but only as the result of at least one big adventure.
6) Creating a vault, no. Being in an area when the vault is created and instead of a vault having most of that energy suffuse and enhance the now-mythic characters, yes.
7) Perhaps.
8) I mean "Be on the Material Plane on a rocky planet." You don't need to be on the surface, but on the surface, you'd create something more like a mountain or maybe a canyon.
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Creative Director
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Mr. Jacobs,
Greetings from a fellow Washington resident! (Eastern side, military life has kept me away however)
What Colossal-sized "miniature" would you most like to see produced for your personnal use?
Also, this for your amusement: http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2qzp2?Funny-things-your-characters-have-said
The Tarrasque.
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Creative Director
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1) Is Desna a social butterfly?
2) Would pirates be likely to worship Dagon as a patron?
3) Would pirates be likely to worship Cthulhu as a patron?
4) The Numeria book mentions that hobgoblins can be found there. Does that mean they use the same technology as the rest of Golarion, or are they T-Te-Technogoblins!!!?.
1) HA! At times, yes.
2) Yes.
3) No.
4) Same as the rest.
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Creative Director
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Hi James!
Hope the GenCon crush is treating you at least tolerably… I imagine it's stressful.
To my question: You raised an interesting point a few questions ago about how pen and paper games, for some reason, are treated differently when it comes to being able to explore adult themes.
1. Why do you think that is?
2. Is there a way to stretch those boundaries, and if so, is that a good or a bad thing for the hobby, do you think?
3. I wonder if being on the top gives you guys less leeway? (I'm thinking of some of the themes in Chaosium products as I type this, although I'm not sure they go that much farther than Paizo does).
It is indeed stressful, to the point I don't really associate Gen Con with fun, alas. It's my job to make sure everyone else I interact with has fun. It's VERY much work, not play, and it's much more work than most of what else I do here at Paizo.
1) I think because the game never made the transition into mass market like other entertainment venues have made, and because for too long D&D was the dominant player, and D&D has traditionally avoided that content, so it has to a certain extent "trained" RPG players to be uncomfortable around that content. There are plenty of other RPGs out there that do have adult content, but by and large their success is a shadow of D&D's (or Pathfinder's, now), or they've often been mocked by gamers. Soon as tabletop RPGs break into the territory of something like Game of Thrones or Skyrim's level of mass market success... maybe that'll change.
2) Stretching boundaries is GOOD. We've been doing that with out products for several years, in fact.
3) Being on the top makes one more timid, I think, about rocking the boat. But it also makes it MORE important to buck trends and advance the industry. Which is one reason why you're seeing us tackle mature topics like sexuality in our products more often.
Does Vic Wertz have a perfect copy of every Pathfinder product ever published in a secret vault at the Paizo HQ?
Does Vic Wertz have a perfect copy of every Pathfinder product ever published in a secret vault at the Paizo HQ?Ha.
Not allowed to say what's in that vault, though. Cause you know. Secret.
Ah, but does Abadar have a perfect copy pf every paizo product in his vault?
The Tarrasque.
Have you heard that Dungeon Crawler Miniatures will be making a colossal tarrasque-esq prepainted miniature called a behemoth for their September kickstarter? Their previous colossal kraken was really cool as well.
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Creative Director
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How would a character that has a Chaotic Neutral alignment view slavery?
Would a Chaotic Neutral being buy a slave?
How would a CN character treat a slave?
Depends entirely on the character. Could hate slavery and value freedom. Could love having slaves. In my view, slavery is more on the good/evil axis, rather than the law/chaos one.
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Creative Director
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The Tarrasque.Have you heard that Dungeon Crawler Miniatures will be making a colossal tarrasque-esq prepainted miniature called a behemoth for their September kickstarter? Their previous colossal kraken was really cool as well.
I have not; that's cool, but I'd really like us to make one too someday...
Hello James!
So first off, currently in the middle of Wrath of the Righteous, nearly the end of Book 3, and my players are doing quite well. So well in fact, that I fear past this point most enemies won't be posing too much of a problem for them. Maximizing enemy hit points just doesn't cut it anymore.
Two of my players have just picked up a path ability that let's them spend mythic power to make touch attacks with their weapons. And for the cost of 2 points, it can negate Deflection bonuses as well. Coupled with Mythic Vital Strike/Power Attack and the extra Standard action they can take with Mythic Initiative, they drop even the toughest enemies in one full round. They tend to do on average 190-220 damage on average, while smiting! But still over a 100 without it.
I don't want all my enemies to suddenly become hit-and-run tactic users or ranged combatants because not all of them would know who they are. And when they come charging in, or even get within walking distance, it's pretty much lights out.
I've looked at a lot of what the discussion threads have to say about Mythic Vital Strike and there's many good arguments about how it works. My group just hit level 11 and my melee players took Improved Vital Strike. How much more Dangerous have they become?
Could you please dispel the confusion surrounding how the feat should work, for me?
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Creative Director
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Hello James!
So first off, currently in the middle of Wrath of the Righteous, nearly the end of Book 3, and my players are doing quite well. So well in fact, that I fear past this point most enemies won't be posing too much of a problem for them. Maximizing enemy hit points just doesn't cut it anymore.
Two of my players have just picked up a path ability that let's them spend mythic power to make touch attacks with their weapons. And for the cost of 2 points, it can negate Deflection bonuses as well. Coupled with Mythic Vital Strike/Power Attack and the extra Standard action they can take with Mythic Initiative, they drop even the toughest enemies in one full round. They tend to do on average 190-220 damage on average, while smiting! But still over a 100 without it.
I don't want all my enemies to suddenly become hit-and-run tactic users or ranged combatants because not all of them would know who they are. And when they come charging in, or even get within walking distance, it's pretty much lights out.
I've looked at a lot of what the discussion threads have to say about Mythic Vital Strike and there's many good arguments about how it works. My group just hit level 11 and my melee players took Improved Vital Strike. How much more Dangerous have they become?
Could you please dispel the confusion surrounding how the feat should work, for me?
First off... it turns out that Mythic allows for a lot stronger options at higher levels than we anticipated, and as such, the adventures themselves do skew toward the "easy" side of things. My suggestion for how to tough things up, frankly, is to limit the amount of time the PCs have to rest between encounters. Give them timers so that they have to push themselves to finish more encounters than normal in a day, in other words, so that managing resources and mythic surges and all that becomes significant—the PCs are more powerful, after all.
Give them more foes to fight too in encounters.
As for how a mythic feat like Mythic Vital Strike works... that's something you'll need to ask in the rules forums. I try to avoid appearing to answer rules questions here since that sometimes confuses matters if I make a ruling that the designers don't agree with.
That said, you should ABSOLUTELY feel free to make your own rulings, or even to flat-out ban some choices from your game if you feel that they unbalance things. Make the game yours!
3) Being on the top makes one more timid, I think, about rocking the boat. But it also makes it MORE important to buck trends and advance the industry. Which is one reason why you're seeing us tackle mature topics like sexuality in our products more often.
While I can certainly say that Paizo embracing those issues has garnered me as a loyal customer, I am curious whether that's an overall trend. Do you tend to receive more hate mail against your inclusiveness and forward-thinking, or more fan mail thanking you for it? (And, if the former, should I be encouraging friends to send in thanks?)
Of course!Ah, but does Abadar have a perfect copy pf every paizo product in his vault?Does Vic Wertz have a perfect copy of every Pathfinder product ever published in a secret vault at the Paizo HQ?Ha.
Not allowed to say what's in that vault, though. Cause you know. Secret.
That brings up an interesting question: does Abadar have a perfect copy of everything that will ever be created in his vaults, or does he only create a perfect copy of something after its been created by someone (or something) else?
Does Abadar have a perfect copy of all of the tech in the Technology Guide in his vaults?
Of course!Ah, but does Abadar have a perfect copy pf every paizo product in his vault?Does Vic Wertz have a perfect copy of every Pathfinder product ever published in a secret vault at the Paizo HQ?Ha.
Not allowed to say what's in that vault, though. Cause you know. Secret.
That brings up an interesting question: does Abadar have a perfect copy of everything that will ever be created in his vaults, or does he only create a perfect copy of something after its been created by someone (or something) else?
Does Abadar have a perfect copy of all of the tech in the Technology Guide in his vaults?
That does make me wonder, when something like an iPod is created, something that is repeatedly updated and improved upon, does he have the most perfect version of the iPod? Or does he have a perfect version of each updated version etc? Like would he have a copy of each iPod with each up date, and each different model with each update etc?
Or is that an unnecessary level of detail that would probably fall the 'mysteriousness' of Abadar?
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Creative Director
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3) Being on the top makes one more timid, I think, about rocking the boat. But it also makes it MORE important to buck trends and advance the industry. Which is one reason why you're seeing us tackle mature topics like sexuality in our products more often.While I can certainly say that Paizo embracing those issues has garnered me as a loyal customer, I am curious whether that's an overall trend. Do you tend to receive more hate mail against your inclusiveness and forward-thinking, or more fan mail thanking you for it? (And, if the former, should I be encouraging friends to send in thanks?)
I'd say we've got more fan mail, which is nice, because even if we received more hate mail than fan mail we'd still be doing the same thing.
I would rather see Paizo go out of business because society rejected it for being inclusive than us staying in business but having to abandon inclusivity in order to do so.
Fortunately, society and Paizo seem to be on the same page for the most part! Whew! :-)
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Creative Director
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Of course!Ah, but does Abadar have a perfect copy pf every paizo product in his vault?Does Vic Wertz have a perfect copy of every Pathfinder product ever published in a secret vault at the Paizo HQ?Ha.
Not allowed to say what's in that vault, though. Cause you know. Secret.
That brings up an interesting question: does Abadar have a perfect copy of everything that will ever be created in his vaults, or does he only create a perfect copy of something after its been created by someone (or something) else?
Does Abadar have a perfect copy of all of the tech in the Technology Guide in his vaults?
Yup. Everything pretty much means everything.
It has to be created before it's a thing, though, so things that haven't yet been created aren't in the vault. If they time travel back to the present from the future, though, that'd count.
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Creative Director
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That does make me wonder, when something like an iPod is created, something that is repeatedly updated and improved upon, does he have the most perfect version of the iPod? Or does he have a perfect version of each updated version etc? Like would he have a copy of each iPod with each up date, and each different model with each update etc?Or is that an unnecessary level of detail that would probably fall the 'mysteriousness' of Abadar?
It's an unnecessary level of detail.
The perfect version of something is not something mortals can attain, necessarily, and those copies in the vault aren't really available to mortals, so it's all kind of a moot point anyway.
Would you be interested in a fantasy setting where almost all the named characters were women?
Hello again, James!
Do you guys make any assumptions when designing Adventure Paths regarding when GMs run them (ie running them as they come out vs. running them when all six are released)? I know there are benefits to running an AP when all six parts come out, but I don't think I'm mentally or biologically capable of waiting until January 2015 to run Iron Gods...
Will there be a T-1000 like machine in Iron Gods? If not, do you wish you could go back and add one in now?
I noticed in Occult Mysteries that there is a book called the Secrets of the Dreaming Dark. Is this inspired by the Dreaming Dark from the Eberron universe?
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I've heard from... somewhere that you're not actually a great fan of dwarves, though I couldn't quote a source to you (count it as a rumor). Is there any truth to this? If so, why?I'm not a big fan of dwarves, no. Of course, that means the internet thinks I hate dwarves. Not true. I just don't really like them. They feel a bit too cliched and boring to me, but in a weird way, doing things non-dwarf with them seems wrong. I just can't really get that interested in them. Maybe it's the fact that I prefer chaotic aligned things, or I prefer things without all that hair, or I prefer thigns that are more graceful and less squat... but it's also a lot to do with how they're portrayed. Loud boisterous drinkers kind of annoy me in real life, and dwarves do the same, I guess.
Shrug.
The Dragon Age dwarves are awesome though. That's more my kind of dwarf.
They are a leaning a bit toward LE. When you speak with the crippled female thief and she tell his tale I feel a strong impulse to search for the guard and be very medieval on him. Or heal the thief if I had the power and that was possible in a computer game.
But they are interesting and some of the better characters in that game are dwarves.
I'm just here, what do you think of me just being over here. In the corner. Glaring menacingly. Waiting. Watching. Contemplating the meaning of life.
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Creative Director
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Would you be interested in a fantasy setting where almost all the named characters were women?
Yes. It'd be a breath of fresh air to see a setting like this, frankly. Or a setting where all of the main characters were women. In fact, that's one of the things that really appeals to me about Rat Queens.
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Creative Director
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Hello again, James!
Do you guys make any assumptions when designing Adventure Paths regarding when GMs run them (ie running them as they come out vs. running them when all six are released)? I know there are benefits to running an AP when all six parts come out, but I don't think I'm mentally or biologically capable of waiting until January 2015 to run Iron Gods...
We assume that a GM is running them as soon as they come out, but hope/prefer the GM waits until he has all 6 parts at hand so he can plan ahead and know the whole story, since that will let him present a better experience to the PCs.
But we know a lot of folks can't wait, so we do try to structure our APs so that you can run them as they come out—that's why we put a campaign outline in part one, after all.
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Creative Director
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Will there be a T-1000 like machine in Iron Gods? If not, do you wish you could go back and add one in now?
No, and no, because we kind of already did something like this in the last Shattered Star.
Iron Gods is about SOME sci-fi elements interacting with fantasy... not ALL sci-fi elements interacting with fantasy. If I'd tried to cram everything into the AP, it would have been a tangled ugly mess. Only the right elements for the story I want to tell go in.