While that is true, what about qlippoth spawned tieflings? They aren't humanoid.What do you think about an aasimar with a cuoatl heritage?Seems strange. Partially because couatls are native outsider, and partially because they're not humanoid.That's true.
It's mostly the (native) outsider part that makes it weird.
The real reason is, of course, that we didn't have room for any more aasimar heritages in the book, and I'd rather not add more and thus make it a multi-book decision whenever you want to make an aasimar. Keeping those rules self-contained is important.
Fair enough. I didn't realize they were native outsiders to be honest, though garudas are also native outsiders and have aasimar bloodlines. Sorry to be a pest ;) Still, I can accept running out of room.
I plan on making some for a Mesoamerican-themed setting where such an aasimar would be appropriate.
Dear James Jacobs,
Why is Numerian technology in Golarion. I thought that Golarion was supposed to be a FANTASY setting, not a sci fi setting, so why are there robots in a world with elves and dwarvesIt's there because there's a long tradition in D&D, Saturday Morning Cartoons, movies, and perhaps most importantly the old pulps that many of us at Paizo adore of mixing science fiction and fantasy.
It's there because we want to tell those stories, and will be doing so with Iron Gods come Gen Con. Check it out and see why in the flesh, as it were!
And if you want to get SUPER technical, Fantasy is considered a sub-genre of Sci-Fi. That's why you see Fantasy books grouped in the same general location as Sci-Fi books in bookstores.
One might even say that the Fantasy Genre is Sci-Fi with an archetype.
Maybe Dungeons and Dragons has some robots, but at least they have spears and swords, I just can't stand looking at that annihilator robot on the numeria picture in the inner sea world guide, it has lasers and machine guns and everything is sci fi, whereas the warforged in d&d have swords and spearsI suspect the easiest answer to this question is that the precedent was set by the creator of the part game himself E. Gary Gygax in the classic S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks published around 1980 (so if you didn't play then... or worse yet weren't even born!) then you are rightfully confused, to those of us playing back then.... well we see no conflict. It has been done.... well.... before. As a side note Piers Anthony has an excellent book called Battle Circle showing how such cultures may interact.Dear James Jacobs,
Why is Numerian technology in Golarion. I thought that Golarion was supposed to be a FANTASY setting, not a sci fi setting, so why are there robots in a world with elves and dwarvesLet's not forget that there is a precedence for this in various fantasy books. Like the alien in Robert E Howard's Tower of the Elephant.
It's always disheartening to see people have a very close-minded view on what fantasy is supposed to be. It's one of the reasons why I've gotten out of science fiction reading.
But I'm rambling now.
Warforged weren't robots. In S3, again, by the creator of the game, The Police robots (and I quote directly now) had: Built in color card capacity, language translators, atmosphere analysis devices. They have anti grav units built in. They had 2 subdual tentacles, 2 arms, a built in laser pistol, 6 grenades (3 sleep gas, 1 poison gas, 1 explosive, 1 incendiary), a chest paralysis pistol, a tractor beam, a pressor beam and a force field.Those were the FIRST robots in D&D.
Dear James,
I think you missed my question....
Is it possible to redeem evil artifacts found in Wrath of the Righteous?
Ameiko and Shensen are pit against each other in a gladiatorial arena, who wins?
Were you to stat up Kil'Jaeden, Archimonde, and the Lich King from the warcraft universe, what would be their respective cr's?
Creative Director
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1) When Lamashtu invaded Abaddon, did any other demon lords accompany her, or was it only her own personal forces because she didn't want anyone else to learn the secret of creating demons?
2) When Urgathoa escaped Pharasma, was it possible to make undead prior to that and people just hadn't learned how, or did Urgathoa's escape permanently alter/break some aspect of how death worked, allowing other souls to escape or be stolen by necromancers to bring twisted unlife to dead bones?
3) Was Urgathoa a mortal before she died, or was she a deity, demigod, or something along those lines?
1) That's unrevealed at this point.
2) That's also unrevealed, but it's likely that it was closer to teaching mortals how to do it rather than being the first.
3) She was a mortal, but a powerful one.
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Creative Director
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Dear James,
I think you missed my question....
Is it possible to redeem evil artifacts found in Wrath of the Righteous?
I did answer this... but here it is again in case the internets ate it.
The AP doesn't assume it's possible, but if you want to give it a try go for it. It should be something as difficult as the destruction though; you can't just redeem an artifact the same way you redeem a normal magic item.
James, do you have dreams of being unstoppable?Nope.
Why would James dream about something that already is?
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Ameiko and Shensen are pit against each other in a gladiatorial arena, who wins?Shensen, since she's like 8 levels higher than Ameiko or something like that.
And here I thought you'd answer, "Whoever threw them into the arena, since they'll inevitably team up to do some righteous ass-kicking." ;)
Is there any reason wizards can't arcane bond to a rod? It seems like a logical choice which has been excluded.
Thanks for your reply.
Dear James Jacobs,
I have three questions about adventures:
1. If you have a really big adventure area (complex of winding tunnels, huge forest, ect.), do you need to map out every single encounter? I ask this because I want to make an adventure in the forest, and you can't just map out a whole forest on just one flip-mat, so how do you do it? Do you just improvise every encounter after the first one so you only have to draw the first encounter (and if so, how would you do combat with no grid), or do you map out every encounter (and if so, wouldn't it be annoying for the players if you have to erase and draw a new map every encounter)? An example of this is in Wrath of the Righteous: the Worldwound Incursion, in the Kenabres underground, there are so many encounters that you can't just draw it out on one mat, first there's the dead spider, then there's the shrine, then the mongrelmen ect., so should I just improvise with everything after the spider so I don't have to pause the game to draw more encounters?
2. Once the PC's kill a monster in one room, can they move as fast as they want until they encounter another monster? So, for example, if the PC's kill the serpentfolk in the first room can they just take their pawns and jump automatically to the next doorway leading to the next room without even stepping in the rest of the room?
3. How would you make a wilderness adventure? In dungeons, the encounters are separated by rooms, so you can't see what's going to be in the next room, but in an empty field, how would you separate the encounters, once you kill the first monsters, you can see everything around you, so you can't just have another monster encounter right after that, because they would come and start fighting right away in the first encounter (unless of course, they were stealthing behind a rock, waiting for the PC's to finish fighting the first people).
How do the Gods react to nicknames?
Abby?
Omi?
Shelly?
Gorey?
Zon-Zon?
Azzy?
Rovy?
Lam-Lam?
I definitely will have to see if I can get my fellow players to refer to Lamashtu as "Lam-Lam". We don't have to worry about pissing her off because we are already her mortal enemies.
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Creative Director
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And here I thought you'd answer, "Whoever threw them into the arena, since they'll inevitably team up to do some righteous ass-kicking." ;)Ameiko and Shensen are pit against each other in a gladiatorial arena, who wins?Shensen, since she's like 8 levels higher than Ameiko or something like that.
I like your answer better.
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Creative Director
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Is there any reason wizards can't arcane bond to a rod? It seems like a logical choice which has been excluded.
I suspect because rods are more universal items than spellcaster items, but also perhaps because they're harder to make than most items, but also because the design team didn't want to allow a bonded item to be ANY type of magic item.
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Creative Director
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can a cleric of Iomedae use planar ally to call a azata
When the cleric does so, that spell becomes a chaotic spell, and as a result it's a chaotic action to do so. If the cleric does this too often, her alignment will drift away from lawful and toward chaos. In a certain extent, it's as against Iomedae's teaching to deal with chaotic outsiders as it is with evil outsiders... although in practice dealing with chaotic ones is less of a bad thing than evil ones.
A truly devout worshiper of Iomedae wouldn't consider this an option, though.
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Creative Director
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Hi there,
Is there some kind of signature armour type/style that Sorshen would have kitted her minions out in? - Karzoug has gilded plate, Alaznist seems to have red etc
Sorshen's followers would have worn revealing outfits and would skew toward the handsome/beautiful end of things.
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Creative Director
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Dear James Jacobs,
I have three questions about adventures:1. If you have a really big adventure area (complex of winding tunnels, huge forest, ect.), do you need to map out every single encounter? I ask this because I want to make an adventure in the forest, and you can't just map out a whole forest on just one flip-mat, so how do you do it? Do you just improvise every encounter after the first one so you only have to draw the first encounter (and if so, how would you do combat with no grid), or do you map out every encounter (and if so, wouldn't it be annoying for the players if you have to erase and draw a new map every encounter)? An example of this is in Wrath of the Righteous: the Worldwound Incursion, in the Kenabres underground, there are so many encounters that you can't just draw it out on one mat, first there's the dead spider, then there's the shrine, then the mongrelmen ect., so should I just improvise with everything after the spider so I don't have to pause the game to draw more encounters?
2. Once the PC's kill a monster in one room, can they move as fast as they want until they encounter another monster? So, for example, if the PC's kill the serpentfolk in the first room can they just take their pawns and jump automatically to the next doorway leading to the next room without even stepping in the rest of the room?
3. How would you make a wilderness adventure? In dungeons, the encounters are separated by rooms, so you can't see what's going to be in the next room, but in an empty field, how would you separate the encounters, once you kill the first monsters, you can see everything around you, so you can't just have another monster encounter right after that, because they would come and start fighting right away in the first encounter (unless of course, they were stealthing behind a rock, waiting for the PC's to finish fighting the first people).
1) If there's going to be a fight there, yes, you need to map that encounter out. If you don't, then you have to be comfortable using a flip mat or map pack or a map you borrowed from an adventure you'll probably never un. That third option is my preference when I'm running a homebrew game—collecting adventures also means collecting maps, and by collecting lots of adventures, I always have maps handy. If you're comfortable just drawing out maps of areas on the fly and impromptu, though, you can get away without prepping maps beforehand. And of course, if you don't use minis or maps in your combats then yeah, you can avoid maps entirely.
2) That's up to GM preference. Some GMs allow that, others have the PCs dictate when they move and enjoy letting the players see the map of the area unfold organically so that they can make choices as they go.
3) Check out the first adventure in Serpent's Skull, "Souls for Smuggler's Shiv," for how I prefer to design wilderness adventures. I prefer them to be sandboxes.
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wait, what god would Omi be?
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Creative Director
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I thought planar ally calls a servant of the god =Neutral good/Lawful good azata=unique outsidercan a cleric of Iomedae use planar ally to call a azataWhen the cleric does so, that spell becomes a chaotic spell, and as a result it's a chaotic action to do so. If the cleric does this too often, her alignment will drift away from lawful and toward chaos. In a certain extent, it's as against Iomedae's teaching to deal with chaotic outsiders as it is with evil outsiders... although in practice dealing with chaotic ones is less of a bad thing than evil ones.
A truly devout worshiper of Iomedae wouldn't consider this an option, though.
Azatas are chaotic good.
A neutral good cleric would summon agathions.
A lawful good one would summon archons.
Angels cover all 3 alignments, but mostly they're neutral good.
wait, what god would Omi be?I have no idea what you're asking about here. Who's Omi?
Nicknames for gods.
==Aelryinth
Oh! I got one. Who is your favorite Villian and why?
Hello again, James.
I have some questions regarding Belkzen today.
From the ISWG regarding power levels:
The vast majority of humanity are “standard,” ranging in level from 1st to 5th—most with NPC classes like commoner, expert, or warrior (it’s uncommon for a character with only NPC class levels to be above 5th level). A significant number of a nation’s movers and shakers, along with other leaders, heroes, and notables, are “exceptional,” ranging in level from 6th to 10th. “Powerful” characters, ranging in level from 11th to 15th, are quite rare—typically only a handful of such powerful characters should exist in most nations, and they should be leaders or specially trained troops most often designed to serve as allies or enemies for use in an adventure. Finally, “legendary” characters of 16th or higher level should be exceptionally rare, and when they appear should only do so as part of a specific campaign—all legendary characters should be supported with significant histories and flavor.
1. Krun Thuul is a 10th level orc fighter (Black Sun tribe) and has a cohort, an 8th level cleric.
How many more of such a tribe (not asking exactly for the composition of the Black Suns) in the range of 6 to 10 should such a tribe have in its membership?
2. About this: "A significant number of a nation’s movers and shakers, along with other leaders, heroes, and notables, are “exceptional,” ranging in level from 6th to 10th." By "nation" is the text (at least usually) referring strictly to nations or in general to regions? This makes me wonder just how many should be expected to be dispersed in countries versus regions.
3. Similarly regarding the text of high level characters "“Powerful” characters, ranging in level from 11th to 15th, are quite rare—typically only a handful of such powerful characters should exist in most nations, and they should be leaders or specially trained troops most often designed to serve as allies or enemies for use in an adventure.
IOW, the wording makes it sound like there should be only a handful of such characters in all of Cheliax but just as many in Korvosa and just as many in Magnamar and just as many in Riddleport and all the way down to each of the River Nations. How is that disbursement supposed to be (other than "whatever is needed for play")?
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How do the Gods react to nicknames?
Abby?
Omi?
Shelly?
Gorey?
Zon-Zon?
Azzy?
Rovy?
Lam-Lam?I definitely will have to see if I can get my fellow players to refer to Lamashtu as "Lam-Lam". We don't have to worry about pissing her off because we are already her mortal enemies.
Yes. Yes. Good. Good.
*steeples hands*|
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Sorshen's followers would have worn revealing outfits and would skew toward the handsome/beautiful end of things.Hi there,
Is there some kind of signature armour type/style that Sorshen would have kitted her minions out in? - Karzoug has gilded plate, Alaznist seems to have red etc
So we do have a precedent for the Chainmail Bikini! Thanks Sorshen!
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Hey, this is Ask James Jacobs, not Ask Rysky!
And on that note, James, where is the place to post multi-faceted questions regarding roleplaying, storytelling and my hangups with it? I posted just such a question in the Advice section and it appears to have been buried and not received any attention or replies, so I'm concerned I may have made a forum faux pas in that regard. I won't ask here directly because it's really multiple interconnected questions that I think require they're own thread rather than clogging up yours.