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As the Empyreal Lord Smiad (Also called The Pitiless Dragonslayer, he's an archon, or Lawful Good, EL and exhorts his followers to be honorable and slay evil dragons while aiding good ones) doesn't have a holy symbol in the books (he's one of the lesser ones in the back of Chronicle of the Righteous, and as a result doesn't have a full-page writeup), what, in your mind, would be a good holy symbol for his faithful to use? What would be a good obedience for his cultists to practice?
I provided the extra information as it's become evident to me that nobody at Paizo knows EVERYTHING about the setting due to being divided amongst so many cool projects, so including relevant info is prudent. James certainly hadn't known about Smiad until I asked this question over in his thread.
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I saw you have asked three other members of the staff the same question. I didn't work on that book at all, so I don't have a great immediate answer. Also, I don't want to give an opinion here for something I'm not super familiar about that people could take as canon and be something that could come back around and bite us in the ass. I see you asked Wes and I think his answer is probably the best one available right now.
If we do something further and more in depth with that empyreal lord, I'm sure we'll give the more detailed information you're looking for.
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I remember having a plot that tied the flumph to Golarion. I think they may have been responsible for bringing down the Silver Mount.
So it can fit!
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What do you think should be included in a Cajun-flavoured setting?
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What do you think should be included in a Cajun-flavoured setting?Chicken.
Jambalaya.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
So ... tasty.
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I saw you have asked three other members of the staff the same question. I didn't work on that book at all, so I don't have a great immediate answer. Also, I don't want to give an opinion here for something I'm not super familiar about that people could take as canon and be something that could come back around and bite us in the ass. I see you asked Wes and I think his answer is probably the best one available right now.
If we do something further and more in depth with that empyreal lord, I'm sure we'll give the more detailed information you're looking for.
This isn't rude, is it? I don't want to seem like a pest or a spammer. :(
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I don't necessarily mind it, especially since in many cases other people are better suited to answer them (depending on the question). The only thing to be careful of is that we will sometimes give different answers to the same question, because until something is in print we might have different opinions or points of view.
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Does a Wild Hunt exist in Golarion? If you had to create one, would you associate it with The First World, or some other plane/outsider group?
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Does a Wild Hunt exist in Golarion? If you had to create one, would you associate it with The First World, or some other plane/outsider group?
There are certainly elements of the Wild Hunt in various things, but at this moment I can't recall if there is an exact representation. If I were doing it I'd certainly think First World.
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What do you think should be included in a Cajun-flavoured setting?Basically the gulf coast plus supernatural stuff.
Man, I gave you a crappy answer.
Sorry about that.I wanted to reply in more depth, but didn’t have the time to elaborate. Also, since I’m Cajun, and grew up around a bunch of Cajuns, I sometimes forget that not a lot of people know about Cajuns (other than the food aspect and swamp redneck stereotypes).
A Cajun-flavored setting would focus on a group of hard-working, fun-loving, creative people that found themselves politically displaced to an inhospitable geography full of hostile creatures and environmental hazards. There’d be dark creepy forests and murky swamps full of creatures just waiting to snatch a tasty human for supper. It’d be a place of superstition, somewhere that the differences between faith magic and arcane magic are sometimes at odds. Hags, witches, shapeshifters, undead, and stranger monsters lurk in the shadows while the people struggle to make a life in this harsh land.
So, something like that.
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What do you think should be included in a Cajun-flavoured setting?Basically the gulf coast plus supernatural stuff.Man, I gave you a crappy answer.
Sorry about that.
I wanted to reply in more depth, but didn’t have the time to elaborate. Also, since I’m Cajun, and grew up around a bunch of Cajuns, I sometimes forget that not a lot of people know about Cajuns (other than the food aspect and swamp redneck stereotypes).A Cajun-flavored setting would focus on a group of hard-working, fun-loving, creative people that found themselves politically displaced to an inhospitable geography full of hostile creatures and environmental hazards. There’d be dark creepy forests and murky swamps full of creatures just waiting to snatch a tasty human for supper. It’d be a place of superstition, somewhere that the differences between faith magic and arcane magic are sometimes at odds. Hags, witches, shapeshifters, undead, and stranger monsters lurk in the shadows while the people struggle to make a life in this harsh land.
So, something like that.
Cajun Flumph? Interesting...
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What do you like PCs to start at? 1st level? Level 5 or 6? Tenth level? Epic levels?
I personally prefer starting at 1st. I like the idea of a journey for a character, rather than a predestined plan for a certain exact build. I play more than I GM and I almost always build out my characters organically depending on what I think the character's progression in the campaign needs and what would be most beneficial to my fellow party members.
One of my characters got into an office game that was already in progress and I started with a 9th-level character. It's been fun, but he's a bit hard to get into because I didn't play him up from the get go. One of the other games I'm in I started at 4th level and got into the campaign after a few character deaths, so it was easier to "start fresh".
I'd only start a super high level if it was a one-shot or miniseries.
What do you think should be included in a Cajun-flavoured setting?Basically the gulf coast plus supernatural stuff.Man, I gave you a crappy answer.
Sorry about that.
I wanted to reply in more depth, but didn’t have the time to elaborate. Also, since I’m Cajun, and grew up around a bunch of Cajuns, I sometimes forget that not a lot of people know about Cajuns (other than the food aspect and swamp redneck stereotypes).A Cajun-flavored setting would focus on a group of hard-working, fun-loving, creative people that found themselves politically displaced to an inhospitable geography full of hostile creatures and environmental hazards. There’d be dark creepy forests and murky swamps full of creatures just waiting to snatch a tasty human for supper. It’d be a place of superstition, somewhere that the differences between faith magic and arcane magic are sometimes at odds. Hags, witches, shapeshifters, undead, and stranger monsters lurk in the shadows while the people struggle to make a life in this harsh land.
So, something like that.
Sounds pretty cool.
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What do you like PCs to start at? 1st level? Level 5 or 6? Tenth level? Epic levels?I personally prefer starting at 1st. I like the idea of a journey for a character, rather than a predestined plan for a certain exact build. I play more than I GM and I almost always build out my characters organically depending on what I think the character's progression in the campaign needs and what would be most beneficial to my fellow party members.
One of my characters got into an office game that was already in progress and I started with a 9th-level character. It's been fun, but he's a bit hard to get into because I didn't play him up from the get go. One of the other games I'm in I started at 4th level and got into the campaign after a few character deaths, so it was easier to "start fresh".
I'd only start a super high level if it was a one-shot or miniseries.
I agree with you, but I'm currently in an argument with a friend of mine about it. We're getting ready to do Wrath of the Righteous. He wants to play a Clint-Eastwood-style gunfighter, after reading the Holy Gun archetype. He doesn't want to start at level 1 because he's specifically drawing inspiration from Pale Rider, which has a hypercompetent character with no clear backstory ride into town and kick the ass of anyone who provokes him.
I'm thinking these things are more a "power trip" thing with him, that he prefers playing an uncontested badass (uncontested in the sense that there's no argument about his badassery, he still wants to have a challenge), rather than starting out small and gaining power and wisdom as time goes by. To put it in perspective, no Clint Eastwood movie ever had Eastwood's character start out as a kid learning how to handle a gun.
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Well, if you are the GM, you kinda have the right to lay down the law as far as your game goes. Since you're playing an Adventure Path that starts at 1st level, seems like starting at first level would be the best choice and then having the characters evolve into their idealized roles.
Starting at a higher level for an Adventure Path puts a huge burden on the GM, because he or she has to do a ton of work to properly advance all the challenges (and even some of the assumptions and pacing of the story line). It'd be a zillion times easier for everyone involved (and it'd run much smoother) to have the player adjust his or her concept a bit.
I don't want to be used as some sort of higher voice to help win an inter-group argument, mind you. I'm just giving advice and letting you know what I'd do at my table.
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No no, I agree with you wholeheartedly. Arguments from authority aren't the kind of thing he considers valid anyway. It's just that we've had this argument time and again, and I'm getting frustrated that he refuses to even try. But he's one of the few people available to play with, and he IS a good roleplayer. We just find each others' preferences regarding the starting points annoying.
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I get it, certainly.
One of my good friends and more solid roleplayers for a long while was also one of the most frustrating people I've played with in my gaming life. He'd always choose a conflicting role or overly complicated character, and while that was annoying to the GM and the other players, everyone had to admit he pulled it off well. The real problem was that it wasn't collaborative.
That's a big problem at a lot of tables actually. People have character concepts, but they don't think about group concepts or party dynamics other than wondering who the healer is. For long term campaigns, I like to have a session before the game actually begins for everyone to figure out what kind of party they're going to form, that way, you can root the "lone wolf" a bit more to the pack and everyone else comes to the first session ready to play up coming together.
It doesn't always work, but that doesn't stop me from trying.
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He doesn't want to start at level 1 because he's specifically drawing inspiration from Pale Rider, which has a hypercompetent character with no clear backstory ride into town and kick the ass of anyone who provokes him.
This was a common complaint in beginning Vampire the Masquerade games. You're playing a character in a game that encourages the thought of starting out up to two hundred years old, but you have the power of a fledgling, and will often run into NPCs that have only been vampires for a couple of decades, or even a couple of *nights,* who have so many 'dots' on their sheet that you wonder if the writer had a seizure while filling it out.
D&D/PF, fortunately, has a built in excuse for how you can remember being a badass, but not quite be there mechanically. Levels can be lost. Whether it's because your High Plains Drifter was just recently resurrected, or because he bumped into a wraith, or spent a decade as the ambulatory blood-bag / love-slave / daytime-bodyguard of a vampire, he's now level 1, but *remembers* having been pretty buff, back in the day. He's starting over, and secured some new gear (having lost his awesome +12 gewgaw of blastiness along with his levels), and trying to build himself back up to the man he remembers having been.
(Less 'League-era Batman,' more 'The Dark Knight Returns,' where the somewhat beat-up older Bruce Wayne attempts to get back on the saddle, with occasionally mixed results, at first.)
Just so long as it's clear that whatever resulted in the loss of previous levels can't be 'bought off' or 'cured' with restoration spells, that the character has to relearn those levels the old-fashioned way, it's a valid way to play someone who 'used to be a contendah' (and will be again!).
That same sort of backstory could fit with someone who just 'forgot' their levels, either through atrophying skills over a decade of working the farm and raising a family, or suffered a botched reincarnation effect that brought them back in the same body, but with a shiny new petitioner-y soul that doesn't remember being 8th level anymore, and has to 'start over,' or even some sort of curse that caused them to forget their past skills, and can only be undone by relearning those skills, at which point they will finally be able to hunt down and kill the dude who cursed them (because some prophecy warned him that killing you would also result in his death, and you were too dangerous to allow to retain your current skills / level).
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What do you think should be included in a Cajun-flavoured setting?Basically the gulf coast plus supernatural stuff.Man, I gave you a crappy answer.
Sorry about that.
I wanted to reply in more depth, but didn’t have the time to elaborate. Also, since I’m Cajun, and grew up around a bunch of Cajuns, I sometimes forget that not a lot of people know about Cajuns (other than the food aspect and swamp redneck stereotypes).A Cajun-flavored setting would focus on a group of hard-working, fun-loving, creative people that found themselves politically displaced to an inhospitable geography full of hostile creatures and environmental hazards. There’d be dark creepy forests and murky swamps full of creatures just waiting to snatch a tasty human for supper. It’d be a place of superstition, somewhere that the differences between faith magic and arcane magic are sometimes at odds. Hags, witches, shapeshifters, undead, and stranger monsters lurk in the shadows while the people struggle to make a life in this harsh land.
So, something like that.
What's REALLY funny to me is that word for word, this sounds like the Jungle campaign that I'm currently playing in.
In this campaign, we're trying to found a new kingdom that consists entirely of kitsune (fun loving, creative people), jungle elves, and legionary hobgoblins (politically displaced). Our kingdom is in a jungle (inhospitable geography) filled with dinosaurs, horrible parasites, and undead (hostile creatures and environmental hazards). Being a jungle, there are dark, creepy swamps and forests literally in the backyards of some citizens and there's an endless supply of creatures that would eat any one of us. We also fought our first green hag coven that tried to infiltrate our town last session, although we kind of subvert your ideas because we're the shapeshifters in the setting (highest concentration of kitsune in one place in GM's setting, and there's only about a hundred of us).
The only thing we don't have are the faith vs. arcane magic odds.
In any regards, I should totally research Cajun-style food dishes and try to change them into more jungle cuisine! :D
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What do you like PCs to start at? 1st level? Level 5 or 6? Tenth level? Epic levels?I personally prefer starting at 1st. I like the idea of a journey for a character, rather than a predestined plan for a certain exact build. I play more than I GM and I almost always build out my characters organically depending on what I think the character's progression in the campaign needs and what would be most beneficial to my fellow party members.
One of my characters got into an office game that was already in progress and I started with a 9th-level character. It's been fun, but he's a bit hard to get into because I didn't play him up from the get go. One of the other games I'm in I started at 4th level and got into the campaign after a few character deaths, so it was easier to "start fresh".
I'd only start a super high level if it was a one-shot or miniseries.
And in addition to what I said before, my first thought tends to be the musical aspect.
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I know they are usually allies but Is their any tension at all with Flumphs and Followers of Desna/Desna herself given the Lawful and Chaotic alignments? Or is chaotic and neutral good aligned Flumphs common?
I'm sure there are some disagreements on overall approach to certain topics, but since both are good and share similar interests, I'm sure things get worked out amicably. As far as individuals go, some tension is assured, as even within small groups of like-minded people there is tension.
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I know they are usually allies but Is their any tension at all with Flumphs and Followers of Desna/Desna herself given the Lawful and Chaotic alignments? Or is chaotic and neutral good aligned Flumphs common?I'm sure there are some disagreements on overall approach to certain topics, but since both are good and share similar interests, I'm sure things get worked out amicably. As far as individuals go, some tension is assured, as even within small groups of like-minded people there is tension.
Ok, thankies :3
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I've noticed that you tend to be a lot more open-ended and speculative with your Golarion answers, Adam, where James is more likely to give small tidbits of information and Wes will write you novels if you manage to get lucky and press a sweet button. Are those differences just personal preferences, or are they part of some glorious cover-up by the Forces of Hell to make sure that theirs is the only propaganda we see?
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I've noticed that you tend to be a lot more open-ended and speculative with your Golarion answers, Adam, where James is more likely to give small tidbits of information and Wes will write you novels if you manage to get lucky and press a sweet button. Are those differences just personal preferences, or are they part of some glorious cover-up by the Forces of Hell to make sure that theirs is the only propaganda we see?
I'm sure our different approaches are aspects of our personalities, to a point. Also, nothing we say on the boards is actual canon until we have it in print, so I tend to be a bit more guarded. I don't tend to work on absolutes and tend to be fluid in my thoughts and opinions. There have been a number of times when I've revisited something I've written months or years later and wished that I'd done a certain aspect of something differently. I also tend to defer to some of the other folks here because they've been here making Golarion before most of us even knew it was a thing (heck, much of Golarion came from James' homebrew), so aspects of the world have been around for a long while and I don't want to make the wrong call publicly. We all know how the internet can take something and just run with it. :)
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How dare you call me the "internet"!!! ;)
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Did you see this flumph bloodline?
I think I may have linked it to your prior, come to think of it. Did I?
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Did you see this flumph bloodline?
I think I may have linked it to your prior, come to think of it. Did I?
Coautl? Coautl! ... Pugwampi.
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Adam, I noticed in the RoW AP forum that you mentioned Baba Yaga's base stats (and that her INT was 18). Would you be able to post the rest of her base stats and how she leveled up/where she put her increases? That sort of crunchy mechanical stuff intrigues me, and my attempt at reverse-engineering her ability scores obviously went wrong somewhere (I guessed that she started with an INT of 16).
Okay, here goes:
Now, keep in mind, I made an error at the start by calculating point buy wrong and I started with 23 points instead of 25. If I were to go back in time and correct this, I'd probably add the additional 2 points to bring the base Dex to 13, but I dunno.
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Adam, have you been keeping up with ze wayfinder? and if so what do you like of the fanzine?
I've tried to keep up the best I can, but I admit that I've read less of #8 and #9 than any of the ones before that. (I also used to edit and write for Wayfinder when I had more time.)
I like lots of parts of Wayfinder. I like that it was an ambitious plan some friends of mine had and they pulled it off wonderfully. I like that it was the first to give the community something like that. I like that it's super professional and keeps getting better with every issue. As far as content goes, I tend to like the mechanics pieces better than the fiction, but that's just a personal interest thing, not a comment on the quality of either.
So yeah, I like Wayfinder. :)
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Did you see this flumph bloodline?
I think I may have linked it to your prior, come to think of it. Did I?
I don't recall if it was you or someone else who brought that to my attention, but I have seen that the product exists. I just haven't read it.
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I don't recall if it was you or someone else who brought that to my attention, but I have seen that the product exists. I just haven't read it.Did you see this flumph bloodline?
I think I may have linked it to your prior, come to think of it. Did I?
I don't think Adam wants to entertain the thought of why any self-respecting flumph would bump the nasties with a gross, terrestrial, not-stinky human.
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I don't think Adam wants to entertain the thought of why any self-respecting flumph would bump the nasties with a gross, terrestrial, not-stinky human.I don't recall if it was you or someone else who brought that to my attention, but I have seen that the product exists. I just haven't read it.Did you see this flumph bloodline?
I think I may have linked it to your prior, come to think of it. Did I?
Thank goodness there are more logical other ways to obtain a bloodline if you're willing to take the fluff a little more liberally. ;)
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More logical ways to acquire a bloodline, hm?
...
Somewhere on Golarion's Moon, following the events of Reign of Winter ....
BABA YAGA: "AH! After an entire Adventure Path, I'm free! Its time to conquer Golarion!"
ZORDON: "Alpha Flumph, Grandmother's escaped! Recruit a team of adventurers with attitude!"
Starring:
Valeros as ... Red Ranger!
Erzen as ... Blue Ranger!
Lini as ... Pink Ranger!
Seelah as ... Yellow Ranger!
Harsk as ... Black Ranger!
Setyeil as ... Green Ranger!
More logical ways to acquire a bloodline, hm?
...
Somewhere on Golarion's Moon, following the events of Reign of Winter ....
BABA YAGA: "AH! After an entire Adventure Path, I'm free! Its time to conquer Golarion!"
ZORDON: "Alpha Flumph, Grandmother's escaped! Recruit a team of adventurers with attitude!"
Starring:
Valeros as ... Red Ranger!
Erzen as ... Blue Ranger!
Lini as ... Pink Ranger!
Seelah as ... Yellow Ranger!
Harsk as ... Black Ranger!
Setyeil as ... Green Ranger!
** spoiler omitted **
I trolled my group with a game like this years ago, set in the Mana Wastes. Only the game was using Neo Rangers as a few others in my gaming groups were considering a Mighty Morphin' game at the same time.
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But ... but it totally works! With six heroes, you'd have one hero per Mythic Path! And Setyeil can be the Green Ranger because he's perfect for the role of "Baba Yaga's minion-turned-anti hero" and Valeros is the leader and Erzen's the nerdy one ....
STOP JUDGING ME!
If you guys like power rangers, then you will need to watch super sentai. It's a lot better.
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Silly Zerg, the question of which is better is always debatable! ^_^ But this isn't the thread for that.
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If you guys like power rangers, then you will need to watch super sentai. It's a lot better.
Silly Japanese voices will never be able to defeat nostalgia for my childhood!