| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Are there any plans for the Proteans in any future APs or individual installments?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I read a comment from Crystal Frasier that she had ideas about a sequel to The Harrowing:
I actually do have some thoughts and notes for a followup, but I'm not sure it would ever see publication because it wouldn't stand alone very well.
The basic plot is the Rabbit Prince slips out along with the PCs, full of wanderlust as he is. The down side is, he's a walking, talking, bragging hole in reality; Everywhere he goes, bad things leak out of the dimension of dreams. And the longer he's out, the bigger the hole.
The PCs need to clean up the mess he leaves and find the Prince, and somehow force him back into the land of dreams.
To make matters worse, now that he's out in the real world, adventuring and bragging, more people remember his fable and are talking about him, which makes the little bastard much, much more powerful.
|
Dear James Jacobs:
True or false? Monks of the empty hand take a -4 penalty to attacks when wielding improvised weapons.
The monk of the empty hand treats improvised weapons as if she were proficient in them, and can wield normal weapons as improvised weapons. This effectively has the same end effect as the Catch Off-Guard feat, but isn't a feat and thus doesn't use up a feat slot since it's a variant class ability. Thus, they do not take a nonproficient penalty when using improvised weapons. The text is not as clear as it could have been, I guess, but hopefully common sense can step in to bolster that if someone doesn't read this post?
(We COULD have simply said, "The monk of the empty hand gains "Catch Off-Guard" as a bonus feat, I guess, but that would have lost the flavor bit about how they often wield normal weapons as improvised weapons.)
Sorry for necroing such an old post, but can I confirm that what you said the the quoted post still holds true?
I'm asking, cos this popped up in a game and we are trying to understand which part of the archetype's text allows monk of the empty hand to "treats improvised weapons as if she were proficient in them".
Won't they need to still spent their lv 1 bonus monk feat to obtain Catch off guard or throw anything?
Since the proficiency section says:
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Monks of the empty hand are proficient with the shuriken only. A monk of the empty hand treats normal weapons as improvised weapons with the following equivalencies (substituting all of their statistics for the listed weapon): a light weapon functions as a light hammer, a one-handed weapon functions as a club, and a two-handed weapon functions as a quarterstaff. This replaces the normal monk weapon proficiencies.
|
It's hard for me to take a compliment that starts with "I was pleasantly surprised..." without assuming that you were expecting it to be terrible, of course... which makes me wonder what we've done to engender that expectation...
Sorry if that's what I implied. I was looking forward to Occult Mysteries, but I thought it was going to cover territory that had already been hinted at in previous books, but in more detail (Veiled Masters, Dominion of the Black, Esoteric Order of the Palatine Eye, etc.), but then you went even further and created completely new stuff that took me completely by surprise, like the Knights of the Ioun Star and the Way of the Kirin, both of whom are incredibly awesome! "Pleasantly surprised" in this case was more along the lines, of "my expectations of good content were surpassed. It's not just good, it's GREAT!"
Do you think it's possible to pile TOO much symbolism or tropes onto an individual character?
1. Would at-will alter self be viable for an arcane discovery?
2. If so, would the minimum level be 5 or 7? I'd choose 6 since that's when the urban druid gets it but feats don't come on even levels.
3. If I use miracle would it cost 25K gp per spell?
4. Would I have to use 25K gp diamonds or would a sacrifice of equivalent value be sufficient?
5. What would happen if I used build points to pay for the spells?
6. Given the dramatic nature of what I’m wishing for, is there a way I could cast them all at once? Doing it piecemeal doesn’t seem like it’d make for a good story.
7. Would the spellcaster being devout make any rule-bending possible?
1)Will the Advance Class Guide have any new Oracle curse?
2)Will we ever see a feat that grants extra skill points?
3)Will ever see an option to loose some class features to gain extra skill points/class skills? Example would be a 1st level sorcerer loosing her 1st level bloodline power and bloodline arcana to gain 4+int skill points and a couple of class skills of her choosing.
4)Will we ever feats for sorcerers that are based on there bloodlines? examples would be to grant darkvision, low-light vision, skill/save bonuses with creatures related to there bloodline, increased uses/power for there 3+cha/day abilities, spell powers, increased resistances, additional immunities, etc..
5)What are your top 5 favorite regions in the Inner Sea?
I finally caught Godzilla last night.
1)Will the Advance Class Guide have any new Oracle curse?
2)Will we ever see a feat that grants extra skill points?
3)Will ever see an option to loose some class features to gain extra skill points/class skills? Example would be a 1st level sorcerer loosing her 1st level bloodline power and bloodline arcana to gain 4+int skill points and a couple of class skills of her choosing.
4)Will we ever feats for sorcerers that are based on there bloodlines? examples would be to grant darkvision, low-light vision, skill/save bonuses with creatures related to there bloodline, increased uses/power for there 3+cha/day abilities, spell powers, increased resistances, additional immunities, etc..
5)What are your top 5 favorite regions in the Inner Sea?
Looks like Dragon78 likes spontaeneous casters just like I do. Sorcerers for Supremacy! Oracle for heal bots!
I was reading the city of strangers book and got to the part about the Tallow Boys and it said there leader is a NPC named Elias Sayer who started working as a male prostitute before he hit "puberty"!!.(even throw it is Kaer Maga)
so okay i have to ask is there a universal age of consent on Golarion or does it depend on the culture of the area?
Dude. Come on.
1)If cybernetics will be treated like magic items/equipment then how would someone start with them at level one(especially a Vercite)?
2)Have you seen the show, Penny Dreadful? If so what do you think?
3)Did you have any favorite TV shows when you were growing up? If so what were they?
Is there any connection between the Xorns and Xiomorns?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
As someone who champions bards, which of The Bard's tragedies is your favorite? Comedies? Histories? Tragical-comical-historical-pastoral?Tragedy: Macbeth OR Hamlet
Comedy: Midsummer Night's Dream OR Much Ado About Nothing.
History: Nothing, really.
OH WAIT The Tempest should be in there somewhere...
Check the teapot...
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Hey James I noticed you have not been active here since Thursday.
I hope everything is okay.
So can you answer our questions instead?Hey James I noticed you have not been active here since Thursday.
I hope everything is okay.
Luckily Adam's got a thread for that!
I vote Rysky for Interim James Jacobs.
Will you amicably step down when JJ returns or will there be a proverbial battle to the death?
*glances over to Cesar toga and gets his thumb ready for a death battle*
Also, will you be a tyrannical dictator or a benevolent dictator? Remember, only one of the two gets put into history books.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Dear James Jacobs,
How badly will you flog Tels and Rysky for going hog-wild all over your perfectly organized super thread?
|
Will you amicably step down when JJ returns or will there be a proverbial battle to the death?
*glances over to Cesar toga and gets his thumb ready for a death battle*
Also, will you be a tyrannical dictator or a benevolent dictator? Remember, only one of the two gets put into history books.
1. Depends on if I get to use my Dropbear squadron.
2. Same as 1.
To the licorice dungeon with you Blasphemer!Dear James Jacobs,
How badly will you flog Tels and Rysky for going hog-wild all over your perfectly organized super thread?
Don't you mean fungeon?
|
|
Don't you mean fungeon?To the licorice dungeon with you Blasphemer!Dear James Jacobs,
How badly will you flog Tels and Rysky for going hog-wild all over your perfectly organized super thread?
No. It is the bad kind of Dungeon, with salmon licorice.
No. It is the bad kind of Dungeon, with salmon licorice.Don't you mean fungeon?To the licorice dungeon with you Blasphemer!Dear James Jacobs,
How badly will you flog Tels and Rysky for going hog-wild all over your perfectly organized super thread?
Will it hold Cosmo? If you can hold Cosmo in your dungeon you might not get any would-be-heroes who rise up and overthrow you.
They might also allow you to unleash the drop bears on those pesky tourists.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
No. It is the bad kind of Dungeon, with salmon licorice.Don't you mean fungeon?To the licorice dungeon with you Blasphemer!Dear James Jacobs,
How badly will you flog Tels and Rysky for going hog-wild all over your perfectly organized super thread?
Will it hold Cosmo? If you can hold Cosmo in your dungeon you might not get any would-be-heroes who rise up and overthrow you.
They might also allow you to unleash the drop bears on those pesky tourists.
Who do you think leased me the dungeon?
Hi James,
I earned the Oread Boon from GMing at PAX East. I started to use it, filled it out, and ran an Oread for two sessions...Then I turned the character into a half-orc barbarian.
In short I have an unused racial boon that has my number on it. I know that it will pass muster locally but I may want to trade it to somebody for a different racial boon. What can I do to solve this?
Thanks.
Maybe this has been asked before but do you ever look back at the history of this thread? And if you do is it awe or horror that you feel?
James,
What do you think the chances are of Desna employing Celestial Mothmen for random meddling?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
James, for something like the Cats of Ulthar from HPL (and later encountered by Randolph Carter), are there any Pathfinder creatures that would be like them? Awakened or otherwise templated housecats, dweomercats, non-good Silvanshee agathions, pards, something else?
Also, how long would a pard live, or an awakened housecat, in your opinion?
Further, is there any way (wish spells and experimentation, perhaps) to make the effects of an Awaken spell breed true, to create a stable colony of intelligent animals?
James,
Did you enjoy your vacation?
Creative Director
|
I have a couple questions about the PF gods. I know that several of the gods were direct imports from your homebrew or strongly based on your homebrew gods (Sarenrae, Pharasma and Desna if memory serves).
1) Are there any gods that you chose not to import and why?
2) I've noticed that a large number of the big 20 are former Mortals. 6 if my count is correct, and that doesn't include Aroden. Was this a conscious decision, was there any particular reason (beyond making the Starstone cool)?
3) of the big 20, it's pretty balanced along alignment lines, 2 for each of the 9 Alignments, plus 1 extra for N and LG. Any particular reason the extras went there instead of in another alignment? Are there any gods that you created specifically because you didn't have enough NE gods yet?
4) you have said that one of your design decisions for the gods was to have each domain offered by at least 2 different gods. Kind of following off #3 did you have to make a new god so that you can get a second god with XX domain?
1) Yes. Some of the gods in my homebrew, like Obox-ob, I ended up "selling" to Wizards of the Coast by including them in freelance work I did for D&D. Others are deities that were just kinda silly or that had better options. When we originally set up the list of deities, I provided my homebrew campaign as a starting point and others' input helped decide which ones would transition to Golarion and which ones would not. And there are still deities from my homebrew that keep creeping in now and then. I have, if I recall correctly, about 70 deities in my homebrew, and there's still plenty who might show up some day in Golarion.
2) Six out of 20 is not what I would call a "large number," first of all. But yes, the ascension of mortal to god is very much a part of our setting, and because of that we really wanted to have some of our core 20 be ascended mortals, basically to "prove" the fact that it happens.
3) We wanted to have 2 for every alignment and that put us at 18. Bumping that up to 20 deities seemed like a good idea because of the fact that the 20-sided die is so important to the game, and because the game uses the d20 rules. It just felt right. We made one of the "bonus" deities neutral because that's the "heart" of alignments, and then we made the 20th lawful good because that deity's representation (it was Iomedae) as the iconic paladin god was kind of missing from the game. We've since expanded the list significantly, of course. We've never really approached it as question of "what alignments do we not have enough of yet?" beyond the core 20; it's more a case of "what 'genre' of deity do we want to do next?
4) Not really. We often assigned domains that weren't well-covered to deities to help not only give those domains more coverage, but to give deities a cool bit of personality. Giving Pharasma, the goddess of life and death and fate, the Water domain, is one example of this. It's not a domain you'd normally associate with that kind of deity... but it suggests some cool elements to her, and allows us to do things like call the transit of souls to the afterlife as a "river" or "stream." And of course there are already plenty of symbolic parallels with birth and water.
|
Creative Director
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Hi James,
Thanks for being available to answer questions. I have a dispute that comes up at almost every table I've played at and unfortunately has always been hotly disagreed upon.
Out of character war tactics.
This comes up a lot, especially in the play by posts of which I am a part. It's my opinion that discussing tactics in a situation where your character is unable to do so is meta gaming. I've always played "speak on your turn and no more than at most two sentences." Meanwhile I'm playing a game with a monk who has taken a vow of silence but the PC feels that reminding people of their best moves is just improving the game. His argument: my characters int is 8 and his is 18 so he's more likely to think of it. You bet your ass I'll bring it up OOC.
I think the world, both in game and our, doesn't work that way. His low int is reflected in his int check, int based skill checks, and number of skill. I think that players should play their own characters and that part of the fun is functioning as a team in the heat of battle. I think the only type of out of character tactical discussion that should occur is something along the lines of "don't forget to add that bless to your attack roll." But I feel like it's up to a player to remember they have, say, protection from evil if it's going to effect how they act and I think it's up to the wizard to explain the effects when he casts it. Just because you have a spell on you doesn't give you an automatically successful spell craft check.
Clearly there is a lot going on here and it seems equally clear there is going to be a lot of table variation. That means you may not be able to address this. Further, I imagine the right answer is hard to tack down due to the circumstantiality of many of these issues but having read all of what I've typed, would you have any input that might help one or both of us settle our disagreement?
I'm generally pretty hesitant to jump into ongoing disputes at game tables because I don't have the time or energy to get passionate and involved and embroiled in game table disputes beyond the ones that pop up at my own tables. ;-)
That said... my take on this case is this: Pathfinder IS a game. To a certain extent, meta-gaming is the WHOLE POINT. It's not merely a shared storytelling experience... the element of system mastery and tactics and knowledge of the rules is a significant part of game play, and not allowing players to engage in that is as disruptive to play as is not allowing players to role-play, in my opinion.
Every table is different, of course, but the game is healthier if it's allowed to at times actually be a game.
|
Creative Director
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
1)For the People of the Stars book, how much info will we get for the 4 alien races mentioned(Android, Lashunta, Triaxian, Kasatha), like less then a page, a page, or more then a page?
2)What 7 races would you pic as the new core races for a sword and planet style adventure?
3)On a scale of 1 to 5 how many stars would you give the new Godzilla?
4)Will there ever be a pathfinder version of Buddhism, Shintoism, or Daoism?
5)Can druids of the Green Faith get there power from the first world itself? If not Is there any religion that is based on the First World, and not the fey lords?
6)Have you seen Frozen, ParaNorman, Wreck It Ralph, Epic, Rise of the Guardians, and/or Mr. Peabody and Sherman? If so what did you think?
7)Will you be seeing Guardians of the Galaxy? If so is there anything you are looking forward too?
8)What are all the non-core races you have played in pathfinder?
9)Are there any Kaiju in the Inner Sea region?
1) About 2 pages per race, plus some additional options scattered throughout the book.
2) Human, Lashunta, Triaxian, Elf, Ratfolk, and probably 2 new races but maybe not...
3) 6 stars
4) Very unlikely.
5) Druids who want to more directly associate with the First World worship one or all of the Eldest.
6) Haven't seen any of them.
7) Absolutely. What I'm looking forward to the most is the fact that I know almost nothing about the story. I'm eager to be surprised.
8) As a player so far, drow and tiefling are pretty much it. As a GM... lots!
9) Unrevealed at this point.
|
Creative Director
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I read a comment from Crystal Frasier that she had ideas about a sequel to The Harrowing:
** spoiler omitted **
Is this something we could possibly see in the future? I would pre-order it now!
I suppose it's possible! Crystal's a great writer, after all! We'll see!
|
Creative Director
|
Dear James Jacobs:
True or false? Monks of the empty hand take a -4 penalty to attacks when wielding improvised weapons.
The monk of the empty hand treats improvised weapons as if she were proficient in them, and can wield normal weapons as improvised weapons. This effectively has the same end effect as the Catch Off-Guard feat, but isn't a feat and thus doesn't use up a feat slot since it's a variant class ability. Thus, they do not take a nonproficient penalty when using improvised weapons. The text is not as clear as it could have been, I guess, but hopefully common sense can step in to bolster that if someone doesn't read this post?
(We COULD have simply said, "The monk of the empty hand gains "Catch Off-Guard" as a bonus feat, I guess, but that would have lost the flavor bit about how they often wield normal weapons as improvised weapons.)
Sorry for necroing such an old post, but can I confirm that what you said the the quoted post still holds true?
I'm asking, cos this popped up in a game and we are trying to understand which part of the archetype's text allows monk of the empty hand to "treats improvised weapons as if she were proficient in them".
Won't they need to still spent their lv 1 bonus monk feat to obtain Catch off guard or throw anything?Since the proficiency section says:
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Monks of the empty hand are proficient with the shuriken only. A monk of the empty hand treats normal weapons as improvised weapons with the following equivalencies (substituting all of their statistics for the listed weapon): a light weapon functions as a light hammer, a one-handed weapon functions as a club, and a two-handed weapon functions as a quarterstaff. This replaces the normal monk weapon proficiencies.
If the monk wants the feats themselves (perhaps to qualify for other feats, or because the monk wants the extra stuff those feats grant), they'd have to get the feats normally, yes.
|
Creative Director
|
It's hard for me to take a compliment that starts with "I was pleasantly surprised..." without assuming that you were expecting it to be terrible, of course... which makes me wonder what we've done to engender that expectation...Sorry if that's what I implied. I was looking forward to Occult Mysteries, but I thought it was going to cover territory that had already been hinted at in previous books, but in more detail (Veiled Masters, Dominion of the Black, Esoteric Order of the Palatine Eye, etc.), but then you went even further and created completely new stuff that took me completely by surprise, like the Knights of the Ioun Star and the Way of the Kirin, both of whom are incredibly awesome! "Pleasantly surprised" in this case was more along the lines, of "my expectations of good content were surpassed. It's not just good, it's GREAT!"
Do you think it's possible to pile TOO much symbolism or tropes onto an individual character?
It's absolutely possible to pile too much ANYTHING on an individual character.
And thanks for the clarifications! ;-)
|
Creative Director
|
1. Would at-will alter self be viable for an arcane discovery?
2. If so, would the minimum level be 5 or 7? I'd choose 6 since that's when the urban druid gets it but feats don't come on even levels.
** spoiler omitted **
3. If I use miracle would it cost 25K gp per spell?
4. Would I have to use 25K gp diamonds or would a sacrifice of equivalent value be sufficient?
5. What would happen if I used build points to pay for the spells?
6. Given the dramatic nature of what I’m wishing for, is there a way I could cast them all at once? Doing it piecemeal doesn’t seem like it’d make for a good story.
7. Would the spellcaster being devout make any rule-bending possible?
1) That's up to the GM.
2) I'd say the ability to change shape that frequently should be much higher level. Druids don't get the ability to change their appearance until higher level, remember, and even then that doesn't grant the extra ability bonuses alter self allows. I'd probably set it at 11th level myself, just as a guess.
3) Yes, unless your GM is feeling generous.
4) Up to the GM. I think a good compromise would be to require a less expensive sacrifice that revolves around accomplishing a quest or task.
5) The whole point of build points is to divorce the building of kingdoms from using gp, which in the game, are too connected with magic item economy/balance to function well for things like kingdom building. I would strongly advise against using BP for anything other than kingdom building.
6) If you combine it with a quest/task to set things up, then one wish should work fine.
7) If the spellcaster's religion was associated with the goal, yes. Sarenrae would be the best choice.