Creative Director
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Well when it comes to things I look at in these books it is not just that "can I use this as PC", it is "can I use it at all". So the mute curse is still cool and If I had an NPC that was higher level I could still use the info. Besides you guys have said it before, not everything in these books are for just the player characters.
Why wouldn't they like a book for real world Deities? Do they think there is no money to be gained? something else?
Fair enough. Doesn't change the fact that I didn't have room to design the entire mute curse, alas.
As for why Paizo isn't 100% universally excited to do a book about real world cultures & deities... I can't say. If I knew, I'd be able to adjust and get the book on the schedule.
Did you miss me?
How do I delete an old account? I changed emails, account names, etc to close a bad chapter on my life by deleting all references to my old name and I don't think my old account really needs to be taking up valuable space and dust in your servers.
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Creative Director
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Any chance you could give a general synopsis, of the Shadow under Sandpoint campaign?
Now that it's over and that group is moving on to mayhem in Osirion... sure! Here's a SUPER fast summary of the campaign:
The PCs started in Sandpoint, all locals. The Valdemar estate south of town has been locked up for a while after the patriarch's recent death, so when a local kid goes missing there, the PCs band up to explore the abandoned manor to find him.
They find him... but they also uncover the tip of a conspiracy that involves a plot to use the people of the Lost Coast from Magnimar on up to serve as hosts for intellect devourers, who plan on using these hosts as an army to attack their enemies to the north in Denebrum in Orv. By using an artifact called the dream lens and recruiting the aid of a talented ghast alchemist named Kanker and a mothman cleric of Pazuzu (the so-called Red Bishop), the intellect devourers used a potent drug known as "midnight milk" to use their body theft ability on dreaming minds, effectively teleporting from Orv into the brains of those who finally and fully succumb to the drug.
The whole thing was actually a really complicated conspiracy and the PCs never did find all of the conspirators and all that. The whole base of operations for them all was a large dungeon complex east of Sandpoint up on Devil's Platter in The Pit (the lair of the Sandpoint Devil). In the end, the PCs tracked down all of the topside intellect devourers, barely saved the town of Sandpoint from having its water supplies tainted with a super-version of midnight milk that Kanker had developed, and defeated the ringleaders of the topside conspiracy—Kanker, the Red Bishop, and the intellect devourers and their minions.
The intellect devourers still wage their deep war with Denebrum, but due to the heroes of Sandpoint, they must now look to other places to recruit their soldiers.
Some day it might be fun to do this all up as an AP—even expand it down into Denebrum and Ilvarandin in the Darklands to give the PCs a chance to destroy ALL of the dream lenses but that day won't be anytime soon, alas.
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Creative Director
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Did you miss me?
How do I delete an old account? I changed emails, account names, etc to close a bad chapter on my life by deleting all references to my old name and I don't think my old account really needs to be taking up valuable space and dust in your servers.
I did!
As for how to delete old accounts... you should contact customer service. That said, our servers here are brand new and ginormous. We can manage a few dusty old accounts here and there!
James, I'd love to hear your perspective on why the Paizo team decided to make Golarion so human-centered. I'm just curious why that won out over a "higher fantasy" setting.
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Creative Director
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James, I'd love to hear your perspective on why the Paizo team decided to make Golarion so human-centered. I'm just curious why that won out over a "higher fantasy" setting.
Several reasons.
1) We're all human, and that makes it easier for us to imagine a world if it's humanocentric.
2) By making Golarion humanocentric, we establish a familiar baseline so that when we DO introduce the fantastic... it feels fantastic, and is not the baseline of the world.
3) Because we're fans of the Forgotten Realms and even more so of Greyhawk, both of which are pretty humanocentric—Greyhawk even moreso than FR.
4) Because we're fans of the same older stories from the pulp era that inspired D&D to begin with. The heros of Robert E Howard's stories, Fritz Leiber's stories, Lovecraft's stories, Edgar Rice Burroughs' stories, Clark Ashton Smith's stories... they're all human. Combine this with the fact that we're equally inspired by real world mythology and history and ancient world stuff, and that means humans were always destined to be our primary race for Golarion.
5) Because there's been a move in fantasy campaign settings of late to embrace the weird and ignore the mundane, and that's a shame, because when the weird becomes normal, the weird becomes mundane. And then you have to get weirder and weirder, in a strange sort of escalation or arms-race, and that gets exhausting.
6) The game is built with the assumption of a human baseline, and so it made perfect sense that our world would have that same baseline.
I, for one, would definitely buy the Advanced Social Guide PDF, as I do for most hardcovers (due to being income-impaired and not yet a GM). Good luck!Seems like my idle comment requires me to come up with a workable name for such a book. Let's call it:
"The Aristocrat's Guidebook"
...for now, then.
I'd rather go back to your idle comment and the idea behind it, then mix it up with dunelord3001's take, and call it Social Grace: Uses & Abuses. ;)
ETA: No really, try that out on your co-workers and see if the "& Abuses" part doesn't inspire them. I bet it would get books pulled off of shelves, too. I'm serious for once.
I'd rather go back to your idle comment and the idea behind it, then mix it up with dunelord3001's take, and call it Social Grace: Uses & Abuses. ;)
ETA: No really, try that out on your co-workers and see if the "& Abuses" part doesn't inspire them. I bet it would get books pulled off of shelves, too. I'm serious for once.
Well that's what I was getting at, but you said it way better. If you are with a group a blood thirsty designers, and you want a social book, try social blood letting.
@ James Jacobs - What is the point of killing something if you don't crush it's spirit first?
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I had an interesting thought last night about designing to cater for age groups etc but I'm still not sure how to ask it correctly.
The roleplay crowd tends to have a large diversity of ages, and therefore I suspect a great range of things that influence them (books, movies, cartoons etc) for their gaming.
How do you guys at Paizo go about designing things to tap into as much of this diversity as possible?
Is there even a deliberate process where you consider the infulences of different generations, or is it more true that what seems cool to one generation, the others find cool as well?
I know that the concept behind 4th edition was to tap into a different group of player base and was just wondering how or if Paizo considered that in their designs as well.
I only ask since I am in my late 30's as are most of my group and we love the game. I met some folk in their early 50's a year or so ago and they were getting right into Golarian, and I recently discovered a group of the 13 year old students at my school also love Pathfinder and play regularly. It's not an easy thing to bridge a generation gap, so your thoughts on why it happens would be helpful.
Cheers
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Creative Director
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I had an interesting thought last night about designing to cater for age groups etc but I'm still not sure how to ask it correctly.
The roleplay crowd tends to have a large diversity of ages, and therefore I suspect a great range of things that influence them (books, movies, cartoons etc) for their gaming.
How do you guys at Paizo go about designing things to tap into as much of this diversity as possible?
Is there even a deliberate process where you consider the infulences of different generations, or is it more true that what seems cool to one generation, the others find cool as well?
I know that the concept behind 4th edition was to tap into a different group of player base and was just wondering how or if Paizo considered that in their designs as well.
I only ask since I am in my late 30's as are most of my group and we love the game. I met some folk in their early 50's a year or so ago and they were getting right into Golarian, and I recently discovered a group of the 13 year old students at my school also love Pathfinder and play regularly. It's not an easy thing to bridge a generation gap, so your thoughts on why it happens would be helpful.
Cheers
Well... we're pretty much all gamers here at Paizo, so first and foremost we try to make things that we'd get a kick out of if we were the customers. That's further refined a lot by feedback we get on these boards and at conventions and to our customer service department. And then we go ahead and do a lot of products. A LOT. So that if something we publish isn't the right thing for one group... chances are good that something else we published that month or the next WILL be.
As for tapping into new generations... that's actually something that our customers are doing for us. Those of us who grew up playing RPGs are still out there, but now we've got families of our own. And having established gamers teaching their kids how to game is a good thing.
James, can some special/unique monster attacks like the Ghost's Corrupting Touch, the Wraith's touch or the Lantern Archon's Light Rays deal critical damage? And in a case such as that of the Wraith, is the Constitution drain multiplied too (universal monster rules do not specify this)?If you roll an attack roll, you get the chance to do critical hits. You don't want to be critically hit by a ghost at all. Being critically hit by something that does ability damage is also bad since it does indeed multiply that damage.
And what about those monsters that deal normal damage plus an extra amount, such as "1d6 fire"? Is the extra damage multiplied too or is it treated as magic weapon properties like Flaming, not multiplied on criticals (or did I always handle it wrong and it must be multiplied too)?
Under the entry for the rust monster in Dungeon Denizens Revisited it says on page 53 "not even arcane items or godly relics are capable of withstanding the alien creature’s unique ability" and on page 54 "They’re also perfect tools for PCs looking to destroy cursed magic items or even artifacts". So, this means that if you want to destroy evil artifacts you can just feed them to a rust monster. Was this intentional?
Any chance we'll get to see Mike Shel do an AP volume? His work in Tomb of the Iron Medusa was great.
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Creative Director
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Any chance we'll get to see Mike Shel do an AP volume? His work in Tomb of the Iron Medusa was great.
There's absolutely a chance. I had the opportunity to chat with him a lot at Gen Con, and he's currently writing the entire "Isles of the Shackles" book, due out early next year. After that, where he goes from there is still secret... but I do love his work!
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Creative Director
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Under the entry for the rust monster in Dungeon Denizens Revisited it says on page 53 "not even arcane items or godly relics are capable of withstanding the alien creature’s unique ability" and on page 54 "They’re also perfect tools for PCs looking to destroy cursed magic items or even artifacts". So, this means that if you want to destroy evil artifacts you can just feed them to a rust monster. Was this intentional?
That should have been ratcheted back a bit. They can certainly be used to destroy cursed objects, but artifacts? Only if that's the specific destruction method for that particular artifact can a rust monster destroy it.
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Creative Director
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And what about those monsters that deal normal damage plus an extra amount, such as "1d6 fire"? Is the extra damage multiplied too or is it treated as magic weapon properties like Flaming, not multiplied on criticals (or did I always handle it wrong and it must be multiplied too)?James, can some special/unique monster attacks like the Ghost's Corrupting Touch, the Wraith's touch or the Lantern Archon's Light Rays deal critical damage? And in a case such as that of the Wraith, is the Constitution drain multiplied too (universal monster rules do not specify this)?If you roll an attack roll, you get the chance to do critical hits. You don't want to be critically hit by a ghost at all. Being critically hit by something that does ability damage is also bad since it does indeed multiply that damage.
Extra damage like sneak attack or the bonus damage from bane or holy weapons or extra damage from energy (like your +1d6 fire) does NOT get multiplied on a critical hit.
Hi , I am from Rio de Janeiro Brasil and I have several books from paizo that i bought from amazon but the problem is that the shipping and handling makes the product too expensive and in the few rpg stores here they do the same thing, so the prices are even higher.
Is there a solution for my problem ? If not, it is ok because i will continue to buy paizo's wonderful products.
Is there a way to sneak my cane to work? The people I live with (read: parents) don't know I need one and after today methinks walking to and from work will be some degree of unbearable for a few days. No, I has no car.
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Hello Mr. James Jacobs
Lesser Eidolon
A master summoner’s class level is halved (minimum 1) for the purposes of determining his eidolon’s abilities, Hit Dice, evolution pool, and so on. The eidolon otherwise functions as normal.
This ability replaces the summoner’s normal eidolon ability.
Summoning Mastery (Sp)
Starting at 1st level, a master summoner can cast summon monster I as a spell-like ability a number of times per day equal to 5 + his Charisma modifier. The summoner can use this ability when his eidolon is summoned. Only ONE summon monster spell may be in effect while the eidolon is summoned. If the summoner’s eidolon is not summoned, the number of creatures that can be summoned with this ability is only limited by its uses per day. This ability otherwise functions as the summoner’s normal summon monster I ability. Other than these restrictions, there is no limit to how many summon monster or gate spells the summoner can have active at one time.
This ability replaces the summoner’s normal summon monster I ability and shield ally.
What do you think of this has a home brew feat:
FeatPreReq: Master Summoner
Benefit: When your eidolon is summoned you can have one additional Summon monster out.
Normal: you can only have one summon monster out when your eidolon is active.
Do you think that's to powerful?
Not powerful enough?
Thanks for your help.
Black lotus
James wondering what those creatures Valeros and Hayato are fighting on the UC cover?
Yetis??
New Jade Regent monster???
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after Varisia get all the loving from the APs (3 so far), will the APs be returning to other places already seen? like Ustalav or the River Kingdoms?
given that the Runelords seem to keep making an appearance, are there plans for other recurring villains from other APs to return?
is there chocolate in Golarion?
Dear Mr. Jacobs,
i was wondering wether there will be more than the 5 Imperial Dragons mentioned in the "Dragons of Golarion"-Book (Metal, Wood, Fire, Earth, Water) covered in the Bestiary 3?
And will there be more information about the Dominion of the Black in the upcoming "Distant Worlds"-Book?
Thank´s in advance...!
Any chance we'll get to see Mike Shel do an AP volume? His work in Tomb of the Iron Medusa was great.There's absolutely a chance. I had the opportunity to chat with him a lot at Gen Con, and he's currently writing the entire "Isles of the Shackles" book, due out early next year. After that, where he goes from there is still secret... but I do love his work!
I also would very much like to see a Mike Shel-authored adventure path volume. Perhaps even volume 7 of 6, someday :)
A few things, more comments for Mr. Jacobs than questions....
First off, I love Jade Regent, I've run various versions of this theme before in my campaigns, from an oriental adventures 1st ed game that encountered a medieval western europeaan colony, to PCs in Forgotten Realms teleported to Kara Tur involuntarily. Love the concept. (You folks do this alot... I love Roanoke colony themes, and have used them in Call of Cthulu, Stormbringer, and an old Birthright campaign of mine, and was glad to see one in Kingmaker)
Second, sign me up as a supporter of a social themed book, would love to see an expansion of rules like that.
Third, any chance we could see some more done with mounted combat? There is a discussion on another part of the board about how there aren't any real rules for dismounting a rider, and since it is a historical tactic (as well as one that makes some stratigic sense) it would be cool to see some expansion on that.
Thanks again for being so available in this thread!
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Creative Director
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Hi , I am from Rio de Janeiro Brasil and I have several books from paizo that i bought from amazon but the problem is that the shipping and handling makes the product too expensive and in the few rpg stores here they do the same thing, so the prices are even higher.
Is there a solution for my problem ? If not, it is ok because i will continue to buy paizo's wonderful products.
Aside from convincing your local game stores and book stores to carry Pathfinder products... I'm not sure there is a solution, unfortunately. Shipping stuff to other countries has always been awkward and complex and expensive, alas.
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Creative Director
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Is there a way to sneak my cane to work? The people I live with (read: parents) don't know I need one and after today methinks walking to and from work will be some degree of unbearable for a few days. No, I has no car.
On one level... if you need a cane, that shouldn't be something you have to hide, and if you feel you do, that's too bad. I don't really have much advice or many ideas on how to sneak a cane to work, unless you're just tricky about how you stand to make sure your cane's always on the other side of you from who's looking at you...
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Creative Director
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Hello Mr. James Jacobs
Lesser Eidolon
A master summoner’s class level is halved (minimum 1) for the purposes of determining his eidolon’s abilities, Hit Dice, evolution pool, and so on. The eidolon otherwise functions as normal.
This ability replaces the summoner’s normal eidolon ability.
Summoning Mastery (Sp)
Starting at 1st level, a master summoner can cast summon monster I as a spell-like ability a number of times per day equal to 5 + his Charisma modifier. The summoner can use this ability when his eidolon is summoned. Only ONE summon monster spell may be in effect while the eidolon is summoned. If the summoner’s eidolon is not summoned, the number of creatures that can be summoned with this ability is only limited by its uses per day. This ability otherwise functions as the summoner’s normal summon monster I ability. Other than these restrictions, there is no limit to how many summon monster or gate spells the summoner can have active at one time.
This ability replaces the summoner’s normal summon monster I ability and shield ally.
What do you think of this has a home brew feat:
Feat
PreReq: Master Summoner
Benefit: When your eidolon is summoned you can have one additional Summon monster out.
Normal: you can only have one summon monster out when your eidolon is active.
Do you think that's to powerful?
Not powerful enough?
Thanks for your help.
Black lotus
The more players that are in that game, the more annoying and powerful this feat gets. If there's just one player in the game, it's probably okay, since all those extra creatures then act as surrogate PCs and replace what the game thinks is there. But once you have other players... it's frustrating. One thing you have to remember as a player of a summoner is that you're effectively shortening the amount of time other players get to play the game—the game session isn't growing longer, so when you add more characters (aka more choices and actions to each player's turn in combat), the amount of time YOU take up with your actions increases and that means the amount of time the other players get to play decreases.
With a class that has one ally, that's generally not all that bad. But when you start to have multiple things that you can control at once, and that's further complicated by the fact that the summon monster lists add an extra wrinkle of the "decide what to summon" element... your turns in combat can suddenly end up taking up half a game session.
I've seen a few summoners in play, and they work fine with just one eidolon OR just one summon monster effect going at once. When they start spamming the battlefield with summoned monsters... the game grinds to a halt much in the same way it would in a video game when the processor is struggling to keep up with all of the new creatures added to the battle.
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Creative Director
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after Varisia get all the loving from the APs (3 so far), will the APs be returning to other places already seen? like Ustalav or the River Kingdoms?
given that the Runelords seem to keep making an appearance, are there plans for other recurring villains from other APs to return?
is there chocolate in Golarion?
Once the next 5 installments of Jade Regent are out, I think folks will NOT think of it as a Varisia path at all first of all. Not counting the first sixth of that AP, we haven't been to Varisia in an AP since Pathfinder #15... we waited 34 or so volumes (that's almost 3 years!) before returning to Varisia for 1 month.
Put another way... of the first 50 volumes of Pathfinder AP, 30% have been in Varisia.
That DOES obviously mean that Varisia's the most common place for us to set our APs, and by that reasoning, it's the obvious choice for an AP that comes out in the 5 year Pathfinder anniversary and the 10 year Paizo anniversary—we wanted to set an AP in the place that we're the most famous for setting APs in, after all.
We're quite unlikely to return to another site that we've already done an AP in, though, because no other region has that same sort of tradition as Varisia does. If I were to pick one place that's the MOST likely to revisit, that place would be Cheliax—Council of Thieves took place all in one city, after all; there's a lot more to Cheliax than Westcrown.
I have Adventure Paths tentatively scheduled out to 2014 at this point, though, and of the four that come after "The Shattered Star," none of them at this point take place in Varisia.
That could change, of course... especially if folks continue to enjoy Varisia as much as they have already.
As for your other questions: The runelords showed up a fair amount in Inner Sea Magic because they're one of the most important parts of that region's magical history, and so ignoring them would have looked like a huge error. It'd be like writing a book about the history of the United States and forgetting to talk about the original 13 colonies. The role the actual runelords will play in "The Shattered Star" will be very subtle—akin to the role they played in "Curse of the Crimson Thone." As for other recurring villians, absolutely. We've had the Gorilla King and the Whispering Tyrant both show up in adventure paths in some way or another, and both of those villains already had a presence in previous publications from Paizo. More will come, for sure!
There is indeed chocolate in Golarion.
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Is there a way to sneak my cane to work? The people I live with (read: parents) don't know I need one and after today methinks walking to and from work will be some degree of unbearable for a few days. No, I has no car.
Have you considered concealing your cane in some kind of greatsword?
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Creative Director
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I am re-running Shackled City hardcover for some of my newer players who weren't around when I ran it before and am using pf rules. I was never a fan of beholders, any recommendation on a pathfinder replacement for him?
To protect those who haven't played Shackled City...
The beholder in Shackled City is pretty central to the plot, and replacing it will cause a fair amount of other elements to look out of place (particularly the various "eye" themed elements, from a certain NPC's third eye to the Smoking Eye template to several other eye symbols and the like).
Since the beholder uses a simulacrum suit, you fortunately don't HAVE to replace it with a shapechanger.
My suggestion would be to try to replace that beholder with something that has some sort of signature eye type powers, I'd suggest a shemhazian demon, from Bestiary 2. This fits well with the AP's Abyss elements, and its power level is about right for what the PCs will need to face when it comes to the eventual battle.
That said... Having the beholder be replaced by one of the Cagewrights might be an even BETTER choice. That way the PCs defeat him and can find out he was one of 13 sinister bad guys with a plan for Cauldron. Which cagewright you choose doesn't really matter, although I'd avoid using Dyr'ryd or Embril since they have significant roles to play beyond the adventure where the PCs learn the truth about the "beholder."
On the other hand, replacing the beholder with an intellect devourer with several rogue levels might work pretty well too!
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I would love to see Hall of Heroes and Villain's Lorebook type of books for Golarion - with completely stated NPCs and with their detailed backstories.
Do you have any plans for something like that? I know that your policy is that the PCs are heroes, and that you are perhaps not eager to have mighty NPCs such as Mordekainen or Elminster, but I think that there is a significant interest for that type of book.
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Creative Director
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The art isn't exceptional, but I think you will appreciate the sentiment:
Revenge
Art doesn't NEED to be exceptional for something that awesome.
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Creative Director
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Dear Mr. Jacobs,
i was wondering wether there will be more than the 5 Imperial Dragons mentioned in the "Dragons of Golarion"-Book (Metal, Wood, Fire, Earth, Water) covered in the Bestiary 3?
And will there be more information about the Dominion of the Black in the upcoming "Distant Worlds"-Book?
Thank´s in advance...!
There's only 5 imperial dragons in Bestiary 3, and they are NOT the ones mentioned in "Dragons of Golarion." That book was written very early in Golarion's development, and we were still trying some ideas out... not all of those ideas are ones we ended up keeping. Especially since the primal dragons of Bestiary 2 ALREADY have an elemental theme to them... making the imperial dragons also have an elemental theme was kind of boring. So the imperial dragons will have a different theme to them.
As for the Dominion of the Black... there might be something, but not much. The focus of "Distant Worlds" is not the Dark Tapestry, but the planets of the Golarion solar system, which are MUCH MUCH closer.
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Creative Director
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Third, any chance we could see some more done with mounted combat? There is a discussion on another part of the board about how there aren't any real rules for dismounting a rider, and since it is a historical tactic (as well as one that makes some stratigic sense) it would be cool to see some expansion on that.
Thanks again for being so available in this thread!
There's absolutely a chance you'll eventually see us do something more with mounted combat. There's vehicle rules in "Ultimate Combat," as well... not entirely the same, but close.
There actually are rules for dismounting a rider, though: they're right there in the Ride skill. Whenever you take damage while riding, you need to make a DC 5 Ride check to stay in the saddle. While anyone who takes any ranks in Ride won't have to really ever worry about this at all... (that's the point... it's mostly so that folks who have huge penalties or aren't trained are at risk), you can also dismount riders by making Bull Rush attempts or other combat maneuver rolls to move a character against their will on a battle field.
Two knights jousting each other are pretty much doing just that—making bull rush attacks at each other.
The CMB/CMD system is VERY robust—you can use it for all sorts of combat related stunts, since it always works the same regardless of if you're disarming or sundering or bull rushing or whatever.
Anyway... the most likely place you'll see us explore mounted combat in detail, I suspect, would be in the context of an adventure at this point. MAYBE if we do a 64 page Campaign Setting book on a region that has lots of horseriding, or MAYBE if we do a 32 page Player's Companion on knights or horseriders.
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Creative Director
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I would love to see Hall of Heroes and Villain's Lorebook type of books for Golarion - with completely stated NPCs and with their detailed backstories.
Do you have any plans for something like that? I know that your policy is that the PCs are heroes, and that you are perhaps not eager to have mighty NPCs such as Mordekainen or Elminster, but I think that there is a significant interest for that type of book.
We just did one—Rival Guide has 40 NPCs with detailed histories and storylines and complete stat blocks. That book has been selling quite well, so chances of us doing some sort of sequel some day... perhaps one that just stats up famous NPCs of Golarion, might be cool.
I have Adventure Paths tentatively scheduled out to 2014 at this point, though, and of the four that come after "The Shattered Star," none of them at this point take place in Varisia.
Where do those 4 take place?
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Nice try!Where do those 4 take place?
I have Adventure Paths tentatively scheduled out to 2014 at this point, though, and of the four that come after "The Shattered Star," none of them at this point take place in Varisia.
How about:
a) Garund
b) Avistan
c) Tian
d) other
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I am re-running Shackled City hardcover for some of my newer players who weren't around when I ran it before and am using pf rules. I was never a fan of beholders, any recommendation on a pathfinder replacement for him?To protect those who haven't played Shackled City...
Spoiler:The beholder in Shackled City is pretty central to the plot, and replacing it will cause a fair amount of other elements to look out of place (particularly the various "eye" themed elements, from a certain NPC's third eye to the Smoking Eye template to several other eye symbols and the like).
Since the beholder uses a simulacrum suit, you fortunately don't HAVE to replace it with a shapechanger.My suggestion would be to try to replace that beholder with something that has some sort of signature eye type powers, I'd suggest a shemhazian demon, from Bestiary 2. This fits well with the AP's Abyss elements, and its power level is about right for what the PCs will need to face when it comes to the eventual battle.
That said... Having the beholder be replaced by one of the Cagewrights might be an even BETTER choice. That way the PCs defeat him and can find out he was one of 13 sinister bad guys with a plan for Cauldron. Which cagewright you choose doesn't really matter, although I'd avoid using Dyr'ryd or Embril since they have significant roles to play beyond the adventure where the PCs learn the truth about the "beholder."
On the other hand, replacing the beholder with an intellect devourer with several rogue levels might work pretty well too!
Thanks
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We just did one—Rival Guide has 40 NPCs with detailed histories and storylines and complete stat blocks. That book has been selling quite well, so chances of us doing some sort of sequel some day... perhaps one that just stats up famous NPCs of Golarion, might be cool.I would love to see Hall of Heroes and Villain's Lorebook type of books for Golarion - with completely stated NPCs and with their detailed backstories.
Do you have any plans for something like that? I know that your policy is that the PCs are heroes, and that you are perhaps not eager to have mighty NPCs such as Mordekainen or Elminster, but I think that there is a significant interest for that type of book.
Famous NPCs is what I had in mind. :)
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Nice try!Where do those 4 take place?
I have Adventure Paths tentatively scheduled out to 2014 at this point, though, and of the four that come after "The Shattered Star," none of them at this point take place in Varisia.
I'm putting my money on Golarion.
More specifically, at least 80% of volumes will take place in the Inner Sea region.
Chances (sic) of us doing some sort of sequel some day... perhaps one that just stats up famous NPCs of Golarion, might be cool.
Please add this to the list of books I would support with my spending dollars. I loved the write ups of the famous NPCs in 3.5's Epic Level Handbook (even if the rules were wonky) and would love to see a Golarion equivilent.
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Creative Director
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Thanks ** spoiler omitted **I am re-running Shackled City hardcover for some of my newer players who weren't around when I ran it before and am using pf rules. I was never a fan of beholders, any recommendation on a pathfinder replacement for him?To protect those who haven't played Shackled City...
** spoiler omitted **
The xacabra isn't listed with demons because it's not a demon. It's in the same category as the bebilith—a monster that comes from the Abyss and works with demons bit is not itself a demon.
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Creative Director
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Nice try!Where do those 4 take place?
I have Adventure Paths tentatively scheduled out to 2014 at this point, though, and of the four that come after "The Shattered Star," none of them at this point take place in Varisia.
I'm putting my money on Golarion.
More specifically, at least 80% of volumes will take place in the Inner Sea region.
After Jade Regent's 3-Continent tour... I'd say it's more likely that at least 99.23% of the volumes will take place in the Inner Sea region.
After Jade Regent's 3-Continent tour... I'd say it's more likely that at least 99.23% of the volumes will take place in the Inner Sea region.
Where do those 4 take place?I'm putting my money on Golarion.
More specifically, at least 80% of volumes will take place in the Inner Sea region.
I was leaving generous room for the occasional volume that goes to a pocket dimension, demi-plane, darklands, or other continent. I think those tend to happen more frequently than people realize. Although since the only APs I've read front to back are Second Darkness, Legacy of Fire, and Kingmaker, I may have a skewed view of the statistics.
JJ,
There have been many posts saying that a cleric shouldn't be healing in combat beyond the odd channel now and again. What is your opinion on this? How was the clerics role envisioned during deveopment?