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Hey James, have you seen this Wedding Cake?


Thadius Stargazer wrote:
So... The only info I can find in books concerning the use of supernatural abilities, refers to them taking a standard in combat.Lure of the Heavens is a SA that you can have constantly active, right? So shouldn't you then be able to fly as part of your movement(starting the duration immediately) or do you have to use a standard,again,to activate this part of the ability? Is this the only SA with this quandary?

The key is in the Lure of the Heavens mystery itself.

Lure of the Heavens wrote:
Your connection to the skies above is so strong that your feet barely touch the ground. At 1st level, you no longer leave tracks. At 5th level, you can hover up to 6 inches above the ground or even above liquid surfaces, as if levitating. At 10th level, you gain the ability to fly, as per the spell, for a number of minutes per day equal to your oracle level. This duration does not need to be consecutive, but it must be spent in 1-minute increments.

As if levitating: Levitate spell takes a standard action to cast, so Lure of the Heavens takes a standard action to hove 6 inches.

As per the spell: Fly takes a standard action to cast, so Lure of the Heavens takes a standard action to activate. You can end the ability at anytime, but you have to deduct 1 minute from the amount of time you have available to fly. So if you fly for 1 round, you deduct 1 minute, and if you fly for 11 rounds, you deduct 2 minutes (because you already used up 1 minute and are now into your second minute of flight).


James,

The monk starts with a list of weapons and a monks bonus feat gives access to a couple of styles.

however that list of weapons and list of styles available as bonus feats has not changed since advanced players guide.

is this an oversight or is it intentional that the weapons and styles introduced in ultimate combat were never meant for monks to take advantage of in that way.


Thadius Stargazer: Reference please? I do not see 'Powerful Build' as a tiefling option in the ARG.

- Gauss


Gauss wrote:

Thadius Stargazer: Reference please? I do not see 'Powerful Build' as a tiefling option in the ARG.

- Gauss

It's under Table: Variant Tiefling Abilities as option 16.

Variant Tiefling Abilities wrote:
16 You have over-sized limbs, allowing you to use Large weapons without penalty.


Thanks Tels.

Thadius Stargazer: I will ammend my former statement: I know of no reliable means by RAW for a medium character to wield a huge Whip. But thank you for now pointing out a 3% chance for a single race to do so.

- Gauss


Hey Mr. Jacobs! Any chance we could get a copy of the "rules for tech, weapons, armor, future gear, etc, from his massive and awesome Unspeakable Futures post-apocolyptic Lovecraftian horror game" used in the ME game you played?


1)So how was GenCon? Do they ever give you a chance to have fun or is it all work?

2)How long after GenCon does it take to have official product announcements on the site?

3)I hear were getting another dragon book for the campaign setting product line, is this another revisted book or something completely different?

4)I take it this new book dealing with Angels will be a celestial version of the book of the Damned series, correct?

5)Will there be any new info on this "Ultimate Campaign" book?

6)Do you always GM or do you get be a player character during conventions?

7)How long does it take you to recover from GenCon?


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Dragon78 wrote:


6)Do you always GM or do you get be a player character during conventions?

I want to play as JJ in a GenCon one-shot! What are his stats? : )

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Sincubus wrote:
Kavren Stark wrote:
Sincubus wrote:

What about evil versions of: Unicorn (Black), Treant (Black Willow), Couatl (Some vain in-need-of-sacrifices dark-coloured version) and Dryad (Something spikey and thorny and maybe crazy with the mission of cuting invaders open to feed their blood to the trees)?

Seems like you could get those just by adding the Fiendish template onto the original creature. Okay, the Couatl's spell list would need adjustment, but still not enough difference to justify using up a page in the bestiary.

Then why are there Orcs and Hobgoblins?

War HOrses and Heavy Horses?
10 kinds of spiders? 40 kinds of dragons?

Really what you say doesn't make sense.

I'm not a fan of templates myself.

There are orcs and hobgoblins for 2 reasons:

Legacy: In earlier editions of the game, humanoid monsters generally did not have class levels. As a result, the game had to model an escalating series of humanoid challenges by slowly increasing various types of racial hit dice. Hobgoblins fell into this progression gap between, if I recall correctly, orcs and gnolls. Going forward, the game retained hobgoblins and orcs as separate, distinct creatures out of tradition and because merging them would have been awkward for established storylines.
Flavor: Orcs and hobgoblins fill VERY different niches in the world. Orcs are chaotic, barbaric, rampagaing tides of destruction, while hobgoblins are lawful, organized, military forces of tactically-minded foes.

In Pathfinder, there are no "heavy horses" per se.

There are multiple kinds of spiders because there are multiple kinds of spiders in the real world. Most of which can do different things.

There are many kinds of dragons for the same reasons, basically—to provide different types of challenges, storylines, alignments, etc.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Fulmir wrote:

A Buckler specifically says that you can't get the shield bonus in the same round that you fire a bow with the shield. A Ring of Force Shield creates a Heavy Shield of force which can be turned on and off as a free action. Can you gain the benefits of a Ring of Force Shield by turning it off, firing your bow, and then turning it back on again at the end of the round?

I liked the clarification on Blink from... about 100 pages ago but I still have a question. The wording in Blink talks about incorporeal AND Ethereal, so does it drop you straight into the Ethereal plane or does it just blink you Incorporeal and would a Ghost Touch weapon work (something that's never been stated to be a Force Effect and in fact uses Plane Shift in its creation).

A ring of force shield is the best kind of shield for an archer or the like, because yes, you CAN turn it on and off that fast.

Blink is still a kind of complicated spell. In earlier editions of the game, there WAS no "incorporeal" status, really—such effects were considered instead to be "ethereal" or "partially ethereal." With 3rd edition, they added incorporeal as a status, but did a pretty poor job separating it from being on the ethereal plane, and in a couple of cases, that poor wording crept into Pathifnder.

When you blink, in any event, you are not ethereal. Ghost touch weapons don't help.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Winterwalker wrote:

Hello James.

I have a burning desire to have this one answered.

Q1: Does the Serpentine Sorcerer bloodline follow the rules for Arcane Bond, or is it it's own mechanic?

Which leads to...

Q2: Can a Sorcerer with the Serpentine Bloodline, gain more than 1 familiar by using another mechanic, such as Arcane Bond, to get a 2nd familiar?

Q3: Is it possible to have a familiars effective level higher than your character level by stacking Sorcerer with a Tattooed Sorcerer granted familiar, then selecting Serpentine blood line to gain the viper familiar mechanic and stacking that mechanic on top of the arcane bond mechanic?

Thanks in advance if you have any insight.

WW.

A1: Serpentine sorcerer bloodline grants you a familiar at 3rd level; that ability works the same as for any other familiar, save that you use your sorcerer level –2 to determine the familiar's powers. As a result, a serpentine sorcerer's familiar is 2 levels less powerful than an equal leveled arcane sorcerer.

A2: If you multiclass into another class that grants familiars, such as wizard or witch, you would gain a 2nd familiar. Each of your familiars would use their own separate classes to determine their powers, and would not gain benefits from the other class levels.

A3: Nope.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Masika wrote:

Hi James.

I fear that my questions and conversations over in the Rules Question section is confusing myself and upsetting otehrs. :)

So in a nut shell.

Can an immediate action interrupt an AoO before the AoO is resolved?

Can a non flat footed character who is dazed make an attack of oppotunity?

An immediate action does indeed go before an attack of opportunity is resolved. If you, say, use some sort of powerful immediate action to teleport 200 feet away before an attack of opportunity goes off, you can escape that attack (assuming that weird power doesn't ITSELF provoke such an attack).

A dazed creature cannot make attacks of opportunity.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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FiddlersGreen wrote:

Dear James,

What's up with the lasso? It is listed as a ranged weapon, but has a range of '-'. How does that work if I had a full round of actions and wanted to, say, lasso a guy 25ft away?

What's up is that we apparently keep forgetting to fix that obnoxious error.

Lassos, being ranged weapons, need a range increment. I'm not sure why that bit of errata is so difficult for us to incorporate.

I believe the elusive errata states that the lasso's range increment is 10 ft. Same as a net, which is the most similar weapon to the lasso.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Alex_UNLIMITED wrote:

Mh, and... A medium PC can shot and reload a large heavy crossbow or a large light crossbow? How many penalties?

I think that a heavy crossbow may count as one-handed weapon for this purpose because:
** spoiler omitted **

And a light crossbow i think may count as light weapon for this purpose because:
** spoiler omitted **

If i think right, i can use a large heavy crossbow with only -2 penality, recharge it free (with crossbow mastery), deal 2d8 damage (same as a double crossbow) with only simple weapon proficiency. For a light crossbow, if i think right, i can use a huge light crossbow for 3d6 damage and a -4 penality.

The simplest way to handle that is to treat a Large light crossbow as a heavy crossbow (with an additional –2 penalty) in the hands of a Medium creature, and to treat a Large heavy crossbow as a relatively small ballista (aka: not something you can carry around and fire, go find a small ballista instead).

It breaks my suspension of disbelief to allow a Medium creature to use crossbow mastery to reload such a big weapon for free. That's a good example of interpreting the rules in a vacuum without remembering that the rules are NOT in a vacuum once play begins—they're meant to model events in the world, and sometimes when you push rules TOO far down a complex rabbit hole filled with corner cases (as done here), things break down and simply stop making any sense at all.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Analysis wrote:
I think it was alluded to somewhere that Razmir, being a false god and and an actual king, became the latter so that the Red Mantis could not target him for being the former. If so, is this part of a more general trend, where megalomaniacs with designs on godhood or the like would start by founding or conquering minor kingdoms as a first step, since to do otherwise means risking the Mantis during subsequent steps?

I'm not sure if that was ever actually alluded to, but for better or worse Razmir is the ruler of his nation and as such is beyond the reach of the Red Mantis assassins.

It's not a "general trend," in any event, since the Red Mantis only go after those they've been hired to kill. If no one hires them, you don't have anything to worry about in the first place.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

HangarFlying wrote:

I have another RotRL weather question:

Outside of the events that cause Turtleback Ferry's weather to be what it is, what real-world location would be a good basis for their weather patterns? The same for Hook Mountain.

Thanks!

Northern California or southern Oregon, away from the coast.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

LearnTheRules wrote:

Hi James,

Would really like an official ruling on two (or three) things:

1. Does Apsu grant divine spells to clerics/paladins? He has domains and a favoured weapon yet Faiths of Purity states he has no clerics or paladins.

2. If he does grant divine spells, what are his official domains and subdomains? Several conflicting sources mix up Scalykind and other domains, and I can't find anything stating his subdomains. Also seeing as creatures are automatically proficient with natural or breath weapons what benefits would they receive in place of proficiency?

3. If no to 1, can we please see in the future a good or neutral aligned deity with the Scalykind domain and Dragon subdomain? Some DMs are sticklers about the setting and I'd like to see a deity with these Domains that's viable for a non-evil campaign.

Thanks in advance I hope :P

1) Apsu grants spells to clerics. Faiths of Purity screwed up there, alas.

2) His domains are listed in the Inner Sea World Guide on page 229, although even there there's an annoying error. His domains are Artifice, Good, Law, Scalykind, and Travel. (The error is that in print, "Artifice" is listed as "Creation," which is not an actual domain in the game.) We haven't yet printed Apsu's official subdomain selections, but I would suggest going with: Archon, Construct, Dragon*, Exploration, Toil, and Trade.
*The Dragon subdomain can be found here.
Regarding his favored weapon, you should also use the Inner Sea World Guide there as well—his favored weapon is "bite or quarterstaff."

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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DrDeth wrote:

I apologize oh Dread Great Tyrant Lizard if these have been asked before but just to clarify:

1. Hide in Plain Sight, when used to Stealth, does not make you foe lose his Dex like Invisibility does, right? (I read both Stealth blogs and it's clear this is something you guys wanted but it would require a large re-do of the rules).

2. When a Eidolon gets killed or dismissed, what happens to the stuff he is carrying or wearing?

3. Even combined with Multiweapon fighting, a Vivisectionist with Vestigial Arm still does not get extra attacks with those arms?

4.What Sean said in “Bride of the FAQ Attack!” thread, is pretty obvious, and it only leaves one question open:

a. No, you can’t charge on foot with a Lance and get double damage.
b. If you do charge on a mount, yes, you do get double damage with a lance, but only on your main, not iterative attacks. This was a new ruling, but since in general you couldn’t charge and get iterative attacks, it wasn’t all that new.
c. He didn’t say so, but yes, when the mount charges both you and the mount are charging. It’s right there is the rules under Mounted Combat.
d. The only question left unresolved is mixing Pounce and Mounted Combat. However, the rules here are also seem clear “If your mount moves more than 5 feet, you can only make a single melee attack. Essentially, you have to wait until the mount gets to your enemy before attacking, so you can't make a full attack”. Now, I guess if your Mount has pounce, the Mount gets a FAO at the end of the charge but you don’t. From what I can see, as long as you are on a Mount, your own ability to pounce does you no good.

1) Ugh. Those stealth blogs caused more harm then help. Stealth has NEVER caused a problem like what those blogs imply exist in any game I run or play in. Not sure if that's because me and my GMs just don't know the rules or because we're able to shore up rules with common sense... :-P In any event... Hide in Plain Sight lets you attempt to hide when there are no normal places to hide. If you make your Stealth check, it's treated the same as if you made any other normal Stealth check, and that includes how your foes are treated when you attack them.

2) It drops to the ground if it was given to the eidolon when it was summoned, or goes away with him if the eidolon had it when it was summoned. Which can get confusing and hard to track, but players of summoners should be used to that, alas.

3) Nope.

4) Being able to charge with a mount using a lance and gaining that bonus to your main attack and not your additional iterative attacks isn't a new ruling at all. It's a common sense ruling that applies to corner cases only when you invoke rules beyond the Core Rulebook. In any event, if YOU have pounce and you're mounted, you can't use the effects of pounce because YOU (not your mount) has to charge in order to activate pounce. And if your MOUNT has pounce, then IT (not you) gets to make its full attack sequence at the end of the pounce, because IT has pounce (not you).

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Masika wrote:

The other issue is that coms with AoO...

Is an AoO an action? I believe no.

It's an action. It's not a free or a standard or a full-round or an immediate or a swift action, but it IS still an action. Since it's something you're doing.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Thadius Stargazer wrote:
If you use dispel magic against a constant SLA can the creature simply reactivate it as a swift or is it treated like a spell with permanancy, where the effect would go away?

As detailed on page 6 of the Bestiary, under the entry for "spell-like abilities," a creature with a constant spell-like ability can reactivate that ability as a swift action.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Tels wrote:
Alex_UNLIMITED wrote:
blackbloodtroll wrote:
If I add the Deadly and Merciful enchantments to a Sap, what happens?
Does not exist the deadly enchantment.

Deadly Special Weapon Property. Unfortunately, if you check the PRD, you won't find it there. The PRD isn't nearly as up-to-date as it should be, it's one of the reasons you'll find more links to the PFSRD than the PRD. The PFSRD, because it's run by fans who aren't as pressed for time as the Paizo crew is, can spend as much or as little of their time as they desire updating the PFSRD with all the new books. Most material will make it to the PFSRD within 2 weeks of it's release.

The Deadly Property was released in the Advanced Race Guide. Though it has (Hobgoblin) next to it, so I don't know what that means as I haven't purchased the book myself yet.

And that's why when you mention something from a non-Core Rulebook it's really important to tell me WHERE that something is from. Chances are I can figure it out, but in this case I would not have been able to since I'm not really familiar with Advanced Race Guide at all. It can never hurt to give me TOO much information when you're asking about particularly obscure rules-crunch questions, since my typical focus on Paizo products is all the stuff OTHER than the rulebook line...

In any case... a deadly merciful sap would deal lethal damage, unless you turned on the merciful quality, in which case it would deal non-lethal damage. In other words, what happens when you make this item is that you waste a LOT of gold pieces, since you probably should have just made a merciful club instead.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

ossian666 wrote:

James,

Usually the community here does a great job of finding me the info I need to make a ruling at my table, but I think with this question everything is torn based on verbage and would like to know what you would do.

Link for good measure

If a Bone Devil is Invisible and he casts Wall of Ice in Hemisphere form around a PC would you rule that breaks his Invisibility? I get that the PC is in the area of the spell, but it doesn't really cause any damage or harm or really anything more than inconvenience and thats where the muddy area of the Invisibility spell comes in...

Again...not really here to get an official statement...I'm cool with just hearing your opinion and how you'd handle it.

I would rule that version of wall of ice would indeed negate the bone devil's invisibility, in the same way a resiliant sphere would do the same. It's absolutely a case where the GM is there to do his job of interpreting and adjudicating rules, though, rather than provide a thousand-line-extension to invisibility that we update whenever we print a new spell...

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Jiggy wrote:

James,

Are outsiders supposed to be affected by cure spells and other sources of positive energy (like a cleric's channeled energy)? Does being a native outsider change the answer?

Yes. Absolutely.

Cure spells and the like heal living creatures. Outsiders are living creatures. Therefore they would be healed by cure spells and positive energy.

Regardless of what plane they were on.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Cheapy wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:

For Golden-Esque:

Hark! A dancing hut!
Has it been one hundred years?
Get them mythic rules!

Huh. A soothesayer?

---

How's GenCon?

Turns out I've known we were doing Mythic Adventures for many, many, many months. So not really a soothsayer as much as an obfuscater.

Gen Con was VERY VERY successful. It was also exhausting and made me sick and put me behind schedule (+1 day for being home sick today). I did manage to get away from the booth to walk the exhibit hall for the first time, really, since 2004 or thereabouts though, which meant I was able to buy a few things, so that was kind of a nice change of pace...

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Alexander Augunas wrote:
Cheapy wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:

For Golden-Esque:

Hark! A dancing hut!
Has it been one hundred years?
Get them mythic rules!

Huh. A soothesayer?

---

How's GenCon?

I can't believe I had a prophecy bequeathed to me in form of haiku! But the silly thing? I thought prophecies were all broken now.

Broken on Golarion. Not here on Earth.

And broken doesn't 100% mean "all prophecies don't work." Just that most don't, and those that do only work out of coincidence or chance.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

deuxhero wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
Snip
Does "simulacrum can't learn" mean just stuff with a statistical effect or does it mean it can't do something like "ask that guy for directions and tell them to me" because it can't remember the directions?

It means it can't gain levels, learn new spells, learn new feats, learn new languages, gain skill ranks, gain hit dice, and so on.

It can still ask for directions, assuming it's got the ability to understand language in the first place. A simulacrum can retain memories. It simply can enhance and improve its statistics that way.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Evil Midnight Lurker wrote:

James? THANK YOU FOR MYTHIC. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!

...gotta ask a question... Do you plan to implement a Mythic level cap, or will the rules just support going as far as the players and GM are willing to?

Level caps allow us to build worlds and adventures with the knowledge of how powerful things can become. There will, as a result, effectively be a level cap... but mythic powers aren't going to function as something you gain via experience points.

In my opinion, the single greatest mistake the Epic Level Handbook did was to NOT have a level cap, since that made it impossible to print things for epic rules that everyone can use. When I statted up a CR 30 demon lord, for example, some folks said that was way too high, where others said it was way too low. It only really worked for a fraction of those who played epic level stuff, and that's lame lame lame.

Level caps allow designers to make assumptions about ALL games, and thus allow them to provide additional content without worrying that most of the players out there won't be able to use that content.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Tels wrote:
Where can I read more about the Mythic Rules release? Have the posted anything officially announcing it or only announced it at GenCon and haven't posted anything yet?

It's been a while since you posted the question, and so I assume you've had a chance to find out more... but for now, the best bet is to simply be patient for a month or so for the public playtest.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Kevin Mack wrote:
Continuing the Mythic rules question trend Will we know be seeing things like the oilephaunt or daemon lords ect built using these rules or is there likely still a chance of there being other epic rules?

One of the BIG reasons I kept pushing Paizo to do Mythic Adventures was so I could stat up things like the oliphant and demon lords and the like.

Mythic Adventures will allow you to keep improving your character once you hit the 20th level cap, and will allow me and other GMs to stat up things like demigods and other things... but not full-on deities. Those guys remain beyond the reach of rules.

Mythic Adventures will also be our solution to "epic level rules." We have no plans to release "other epic rules" beyond periodic expansions to the Mythic Rules (in the same way all our current products provide periodic expansions to the Core rules).

Paizo Employee Creative Director

The Thing from Beyond the Edge wrote:

A couple questions out of the blue here...

1. Would sumptuary laws be a great fit for Cheliax?
2. Are sumptuary laws actually in existence (rather than merely being a good fit) in the Inner Sea Region? If so, where?

Thanks in advance

1) Perhaps... especially if it had a lot of unfair social class/caste exceptions.

2) There are laws like this all over the Inner Sea region... in some cases pretty minor, but in others quite blatant. And they vary within region as well. Too many examples to think of, frankly.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

blackbloodtroll wrote:

How large must a site, building, or structure be for me to cast Hallow/Unhallow upon it?

Could it be an Outhouse, a Birdhouse, a Boat, or Instant Fortress?

Hallow and unhallow are not cast on a building or structure. They're cast on a point in space that creates a 40-foot-radius area of effect.

So, if you cast it on an outhouse or birdhouse, the hallow effect radiates out to 40 feet, which likely encompasses the entire structure and a significant area around it.

If you cast it on a point inside of a boat or vehicle or mobile structure, the hallow effect does not move with the vehicle; it remains fixed on a point in space. If you move the boat, you leave the spell effect's area behind.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Humphrey Boggard wrote:

Any thoughts on how AC is balanced versus AT at higher levels?

Seems like a lot of people on the boards are of the opinion that AC defense at higher levels is either a full time occupation or completely useless. I haven't played at higher levels (my 9th level samurai in RotRL is the highest level PF character I've played) but think that at later levels a good AC means more "stopping a greater percentage of iterative attacks" than "stopping the majority of primary attacks".

btw - the group is having a great time with RotRL (just got the new edition the session before last), thanks for all your hard work on that.

I assume that "AT" means "attack roll?"

There are a LOT of opinions on the boards. That's for sure. Many of them are founded on inaccurate assumptions or misinformation, same as with ANY opinion.

The game is designed, though, so that a creature or character with a full base attack bonus does indeed hit more often than he misses with his best attacks. That's one way the game models the fact that when your character gets higher level, you start feeling more powerful. And also helps to reward you with giving you more room to do weird stuff with your attacks that penalize your attack rolls, such as dual wield or power attack and so on. And it's also why many higher level monsters have additional defenses beyond AC to prevent damage, such as damage reduction, fast healing, regenerate, and so on.

Glad to hear you're enjoying Runelords!

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Evil Midnight Lurker wrote:
blackbloodtroll wrote:

How large must a site, building, or structure be for me to cast Hallow/Unhallow upon it?

Could it be an Outhouse, a Birdhouse, a Boat, or Instant Fortress?

Can you cast Hallow/Unhallow on a witch's hexed hut or other mobile building and have it carry the effect around?

No.

EXCEPTION: If you're a mythic character, or the mobile building happens to be an artifact, or you have some other method of breaking/bending rules... then maybe.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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ArianDynas wrote:
How would you advise a DM to go about roleplaying Nethys for an interaction with PCs in a campaign?

Play Nethys as a schizophrenic or a multiple-personality case. Kind and calm one moment, then angry and violent the next. Look at the various things magic can do. That's what Nethys acts like. In fact, if you want to go way over the top, you could randomly roll a random spell and use that as a guide to his personality whenever he's met, and reroll a new spell to guide you every once and a while, or each time a new question is asked.

Fireball could mean he's explosive and active.

Cure light wounds could mean calm and soothing.

Fear might mean he's cowardly and scared.

Prismatic spray might mean flamboyant and dangerous.

And so on.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Kthulhu wrote:
Run, Just Run wrote:
How would you go about converting Tomb of horrors and should I convert from 3.5 or 1st edition?
I'd NOT play it in Pathfinder. It's not the same module under d20 rules. Play it with a ruleset that it was designed for, or at least a close approximation.

If I were to play it in Pathfinder, I'd convert the entire thing, which means the adventure would likely quadruple in size.

Whether I played it in 1st edition or Pathfinder would depend on my mood or the game I wanted it to take place in.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

feytharn wrote:

Have you heard of this kickstarter project?

If they use the outline of the italian reprint that is a translation of the german Pegasus Spiele version I described here that would be an amazing re-release.

I in fact heard about that Kickstarter project from none other than Charlie Krank, president of Chaosium, while I was chatting with him at Gen Con. And that evening I promptly threw down a wad of cash to help support the project. He's got some really cool ideas for some new stretch goals and higher funding opportunities too... stay tuned, folks! And support the project, because doing so helps me get a cooler reprint of this adventure! :-)

Paizo Employee Creative Director

The Best Goblin! wrote:
On a scale of one to ten, how excited are you to start the public playtesting of the Mythic Adventures rules set?

10

Which is also the scale of how nervous I am about it.

Public playtests are VERY VERY helpful in letting us make our games better... but they tend to also foster a lot of bad vibes and unfortunate flame wars and other things that I wish our customers were above... but it's an unfortunate fact that the more popular Pathifnder gets, the more that'll probably be a problem since an increased customer base also increases the number of angry people.

I'm also nervous because the same folks who say "Epic is broken but we love it!" are not going to give Mythic Adventures the chance to win them over because they'll make snap judgements and otherwise make up their minds before they try things out.


James Jacobs,

I have a question regarding the use of a bow. My fiancee has reached a point in which she receives an additional attack for her ranger (+6/+1). She know that it takes a move action to reload but we are not sure if this works with a full round action. Can she use a bow for her full round action or does this only apply to melee?

Thank you for your time!

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Azure_Zero wrote:
Your input on this?

Not really my sense of humor.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Tels wrote:
The Thing from Beyond the Edge wrote:
doctor_wu wrote:
The Thing from Beyond the Edge wrote:

James hasn't answered any questions since Tuesday. He must have something or other going on.

:D

Gencon.
Yeah, I know. That's why the big smilie. :D

Methinks James is tuckered out...

... and now I suddenly have a picture of James in his hotel room, wearing Paizo Golem jammies and snuggling with his Goblin plushie.

There's something wrong with me...

While Gen Con is indeed exhausting, and does indeed leave me with very little time to do idle stuff like answering questions on these boards... my lack of easy access to the internet is also a reason that I didn't answer many questions over the past few days.

Now that I'm home sick with Con Crud, though... that's a different situation entirely.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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edduardco wrote:

Hi James

Is there any chance that Paizo publish a class/archetype builder like the race builder? (sorry if this have been already answered)

I hope not.

I'd rather see new class powers and flavor appear in the game in the future via archetypes, prestige classes, and the like.

Furthermore, I'm actually of the opinion that overly detailed point-based build options (like the race builder) have two effects that I think are bad for building a cool game world:

1) They imply that new abilities beyond those listed as options aren't allowed, and thus artificially limit creativity.

2) They overdiversify things. I think being able to say "That is an elf" or "that is a wizard" and have those four words actually MEAN something is valuable. If we went too far into a point-based system where every player would and could build his/her own strange variant... then things get too crazy for my tastes.

In my opinion, the race builder rules should be used for one of two things:

1) For GMs who want to build a new set of a limited number of player races for their campaign settings.

2) For GMs/Players who want to build a player-appropriate version of an existing race, like a gnoll, without having to deal with racial hit dice.


Andru Watkins wrote:

James Jacobs,

I have a question regarding the use of a bow. My fiancee has reached a point in which she receives an additional attack for her ranger (+6/+1). She know that it takes a move action to reload but we are not sure if this works with a full round action. Can she use a bow for her full round action or does this only apply to melee?

Thank you for your time!

Reloading a bow is a free action. Its part of firing the bow.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Fract wrote:

I'm completely mesmerized by the new Varisia map, and I want more.

Are there any plans, in the immediate future, for a collection that
covers the rest of the Inner Sea / known world? Especially for those
regions which have already been covered by Companions, or other
releases.

If not, is there some other way we can fund the maps (privately or crowd
-sourced), as web-enhancements, or something of the like? If we could get a
physical copy later, especially on some form of durable material, I would happily
buy it twice. . . or even three times.

Please take more of my money!

Yup. In fact, the Varisia map is the 2nd one of these we've done for Golarion (and, technically, the 3rd one we've published... we did one of the Isle of Dread back during Savage Tide). We've also done a map in this style of the Shackles (this map appears in the Shackles Map Folio).

I've always loved this style of player map, and I very much hope to be able to periodically do maps like these now and then in the future.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Rhuarc wrote:

Hey James,

you once said that if Paizo would make Mytic rules, you would probably cap the CR at somewhere around 36. Will the new book you announced for next GenCon provide rules and/or guidelines for PCs to become powerful enough to even face such high-level adversaries?

Thanks a lot in advance and hope you enjoy the rest of the weekend in Indy :-)

Mythic Adventures will have an effective level cap.

Note, a "level cap" and a "CR cap" are NOT the same thing. As a general rule, I see a Pathfinder "CR cap" as being 5 more than a Pathfinder "level cap." That's why you see monsters in our books of up to CR 25 and not CR 26.

Mythic Adventures will not necessarily raise the level cap, but it WILL raise the CR Cap. The whole book is about how PCs become powerful enough to take on threats that are, say, CR 30 or 35.


Really curious about the Mythic rules. I guess my main question is; will Mythic PCs and NPCs (i.e. Tar-Baphon, Nex, Baba Yaga etc.) use the same basic rules (at least to the extent that PCs and NPCs do pre-epic)?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Zark wrote:

Theoretically, if Pharasma would lean towards one alignment on the G-E axis or C-L axis would it be LN, CN, NE or NG?

Does Pharasma dislike birth control or is she cool with it?

I suppose she'd probably lean toward lawful neutral, since judging souls is something that follows a super-complex set of rules. Of course, the fact that she writes those rules and changes them as she wants or needs would mean she leans toward chaotic neutral. At the same time, she's capable of showing mercy to those who deserve it so that would make her mostly neutral good... but whether or not that mercy granted makes the world a safer place is up to question and since she IS about people dying, she's probably more neutral evil.

In other words... she's neutral. Making her lean toward any other alignment starts turning her into another deity.

She is, as a result, neutral as regards birth control.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Coridan wrote:

I know it might not be till after Gencon for a response but just curious

** spoiler omitted **

The similarity between those two adventures is a case of parallel design brought on by the fact that they ended up using some similar monsters. That said...

Spoiler:
...there's a LOT more than derros in Shattered Star, so really it's only a fraction of "Shards of Sin" that is similar to "Deepmar."

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Danny Kessler wrote:
What are the names and locations of the 10 dwarven Sky Citadels, and which ones are still in dwarven hands?

We haven't revealed all of that information yet.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Xyllen wrote:

I was wondering if there was any final word on the question of a magus being able to wield a two handed weapon and use spell combate or not.

I know he can't use spell combate, but does the (cheesey) free action to hold a two handed weapon in one hand, cast a spell with the off hand, regrip your weapon with both hands, and finally deliver the spell via spell strike leagle? (all in one round?)

Unless you have a specific archetype that allows it, a magus can't use a two handed weapon and do spell combat with it.

The WHOLE POINT of the magus is that he "dual wields" a weapon and a spell. Therefore, the WHOLE POINT of the magus is that he uses one-handed weapons.

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