Where did Mr. Jacobs say that?
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Don't tease us. ;) I would totally shell out for however much such a massive tome would wind up costing...though for the sake of the integrity of everyone's bookshelves, maybe it should be divided into at least two or three volumes. Inner Spheres, Outer Spheres, and Demiplanes?The problem with going in depth in every single plane is that the book would end up being like... 1,000 pages lol.Hold my beer. ;)
I think Mr. Stewart was making a joke about his previous incident of submitting a substantially-over wordcount article causing the Paizo editor to make a Will save vs. stun. ;)
If he wasn't so busy with his day job, heading back to university, and other real life stuff, I'd pester Mr. Stewart to set up a patreon to cut loose with his planar observations. Just imagine whole Xanxost-style narrated articles written by Tegresin, Il'setsya, and Hymn of Entropic Electrons. :D
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The problem with going in depth in every single plane is that the book would end up being like... 1,000 pages lol.Hold my beer. ;)Have a drink on me.
Long ago, in a galaxy far far away a bunch of aliens wrote a campain called something like Plane Scope or Plane Skip or whathever.
I have thousands of pages of PS books home... I can bet that gathering the parts that describe planes, features and inhabitants it would end up being well above 1.000 pages without repetitions.
So doable... let's have that beer.
Wasn't that the one with the creepy woman who was really into furniture polish? The Lady of Pine or something?
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If he wasn't so busy with his day job, heading back to university, and other real life stuff, I'd pester Mr. Stewart to set up a patreon to cut loose with his planar observations. Just imagine whole Xanxost-style narrated articles written by Tegresin, Il'setsya, and Hymn of Entropic Electrons. :D
It would be crazy, bonkers, and probably far too lewd. XD
I've considered it, except IP ownership issues preclude me charging for stuff using Paizo IP. Not going happen. Yeah technically with Patreon you're not directly paying for anything per se, but I don't want to do something gauche like that regardless because I like Paizo, I like writing for them, and they're exceptionally nice to me. Plus I don't have time with being back in school full time.
FWIW, I posted the first two entries in an in-character journal of my ganzi cleric of Ssila'meshnik, Y'dalnia, that I played through 'The Moonscar' earlier this year.
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2u90u?Todd-Stewarts-Journal#1
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If he wasn't so busy with his day job, heading back to university, and other real life stuff, I'd pester Mr. Stewart to set up a patreon to cut loose with his planar observations. Just imagine whole Xanxost-style narrated articles written by Tegresin, Il'setsya, and Hymn of Entropic Electrons. :DIt would be crazy, bonkers, and probably far too lewd. XD
I've considered it, except IP ownership issues preclude me charging for stuff using Paizo IP. Not going happen. Yeah technically with Patreon you're not directly paying for anything per se, but I don't want to do something gauche like that regardless because I like Paizo, I like writing for them, and they're exceptionally nice to me. Plus I don't have time with being back in school full time.
Oops, I should have been clearer. Obviously, you couldn't include Paizo IP and it wouldn't be canon within the Golarion setting. But I'm sure you still come up with a wealth of new "generic" lore that GMs/players could drop into the setting but won't fit within the finite pages of this book.
Plus I don't have time with being back in school full time.
Ah. I keep forgetting you mortals are still bound by linear progression of time. Rats.
I wonder how useful this book will end up being to people who use their own settings. My campaign setting is planar focused so I want the book to be really useful, but my planes aren't the golarion ones.
Milo v3, the book will more then likely be campaign specific since that is the direction the RPG hardcover line is going.
I'm aware that it's more a question "How campaign specific will it be" than "if it's campaign specific".
We will have to wait until the product description finally shows up but I am sure by the way they are making it sound like, I would say very campaign specific.
Edit: Eric Mona did state earlier that this book will have a lot of "setting" information.
I'm aware that it's more a question "How campaign specific will it be" than "if it's campaign specific".
How divergent is your own setting from the Golarion cosmology. I would think if you have the same or similar planar themes, a lot should be relevant (e.g. you have a plane for each alignment, elemental planes, etc).
Yeah, I am also curious about how different your cosmology would be?
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Planes have the same name as Core (so it has Purgatory and Limbo) other than Temenos being a plane which is all the elemental planes sort of overlapped + negative energy being the plane of Yin + positive energy plane being Yang, simply for ease in handling "which outsider goes where" laziness. It's subjective morality so there is no "alignment-association" for the planes.
Lets see...
The Abyss is simply the parts of existence that concepts haven't reached because the conceptual-currents of limbo don't point in all directions or with the same strength. Because it lacks a lot of physics, people have realized that you can create sci-fi tech.Qlippoth are shells of the monad which try to prevent creation from leaving itself, while demons are the warped souls which were dumped in the abyss if a psychopomp notices their prana matrix has a glitch in it which prevents karma from being wiped from a soul between reincarnations meaning they cannot be properly refined into an outsider (but since the abyss lacks the physics of the rest of existence it turns them into outsiders anyway).
There are three mortal planes, first got screwed over by having too many leylines so the mortals ended up needing to devour all their kami until they became the fey. Second was screwed over because the gods were too cautious about leylines so the mortals ended up tapping into the dimension of dreams until eventually they sort of partially merged and that's the mortal plane which aberrations are from. Third mortal plane is the most normal.
Astral is basically the same.
Elysium is the origin of mythic energy (and all deities in the setting are mythic creatures/NPCs with stats), and runs on myth/narrative logic. Azata are any ex-angels who have had their deities die (since they deities can easily be stabbed) and suddenly needed a new source of mythic energy.
Ethereal is the corpse of the plane of aether, which was destroyed by out-temenos elemental gods because it was giving the inner temenos elemental gods too much material to create life.
Heaven is seven glorious cities which physically overlap and are treated as separate layers of the plane. Each city is surrounded by aetheral smoke from utopia's pollution. The archons are sort of orwellian and are trying to provide security to all of existence.
Hell is on the underside of heaven, has seven realms each both a prison and a market of sorts. Devils follow the idea that their souls need to be refined from their primitive mortal life, and the most effective way to do that is to provide Nemesis-style (the greek-godess) justice until they are redeemed.
Limbo is the spawning point of creation which is overseen by the protean rainbow serpents who are in constant wars with each other over how to direct the currents of creation. All the while other planes are trying to block concepts from their enemies, and trying to find concepts to empower their own faction.
Nirvana is a massive inverted torus which holds every possible natural environment, with a perfect emptiness inside. Agathions are outsiders who have broken their cycle of reincarnation and if they die their souls simply become part of the Monad rather than going to to Yang. Though minor astral reflections of them remain which lead to the creation of familiars.
Purgatory is an infinitely large river, with giant water-wheel cities. One wheel-city for each major plane of existence. Psychopomps are monad's instinct to push the souls through the wheels of reincarnation and handle prana-matrixes of all life. Psychopomps don't have much issue with undead.
Shadow is pretty much the same, though in this it's a screw up of the aeons which ended up causing a bit of the next-multiverse into existence early and sometimes "things that aren't" come through like the mind-machine (creating psionics which looks like videogame glitches).
Utopia is giant metal cube land where they try to record all of physics, and they put souls into mecha to fight against the physics which doesn't exist which keeps coming out of the Abyss and the Shadow.
So.... It's both similar the default cosmology while definitely not matching 1 to 1. So theoretically some material should be useful as long as it's not super specific to golarion. We wont know exactly until it comes out, so I'm curious.
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Well lore wise Golarion planes are pretty much rpg book line planes with Boneyard, Maelstrom and Axis replacing Purgatory, Limbo and Utopia .-. So basically, yeah, lore wise it will differ just as your lore differs from default rpg line descriptions, but I don't think there should be mechanical differences that can't be fitted.
Like as example, default Purgatory and Boneyard has exact same planar traits, just the flavor is different.(compare GameMasteryGuide's planar adventures info vs occult adventures info in running an occult game. You can find both in prd) Now in Planar Adventures, I'd assume they mention the whole "Pharasma is in Boneyard judging the souls" thing and maybe even Groetus, but mechanically gods are "What GM says" so again shouldn't really conflict mechanically with your stuff.
I would love to find out more about this product but I am not sure the product description will reveal much more then what was stated at the Gen Con.
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Alright, I have put off making this post and posts like it for years, at least that is how it feels, but the time has come for me to come out and say it.
Now that I got your attention, allow me to elaborate on my previous point. Back in '09, when many of us first got our grubby little hands on the ol' Pathfinder Core Rulebook, we were delighted with what we found in it. A lot of the flaws of 3.5 had been patched, many classes were significantly improved and we of course enchanted by the high production values that have become synonymous with Paizo products. Now, while we were reading the text we came across two (groups of) spells: Summon Monster & Summon Nature's Ally. Most of us I presume, didn't give the spells much thought; after all they had been in D&D in some form or another for time out of mind, and the rendition found here didn't seem greatly different that the of the ones from 3.5. However over the years a problem has arose. It has been 9 years since the Core rules have come out and we have had FIVE new bestiaries since then. Quite a few iconic monsters only came out in the later bestiaries, and the presence is sorely lacking from our tables, both in the book and in reality. I'm not the only one to notice such problems. Many are the AP volumes I have cracked open to find that the author was forced to create a new summoning spell to allow a character to summon something that should been on the list to begin with had in been created back then. A casual browse through the Archive of Nethys' database for Wizard spells turns up 20 spells that are specifically made to summon things that were not covered by the original list, which I not proceed to list here (spoiled for length).
Now, some of you may be saying that expanding the SM list would make casters more powerful, to which I would say, yes it would. Every class in the game should get more powerful as the game ages due to them having more options available to them and more ways to combine said options. If they are not, then that probably means that they have only been getting options that are sup-par to the ones already available to them, which is not a desirable outcome. If a fellow takes a core-only fighter and pits him against a fighter of equal level and point buy who was allowed access to all official material ever released, assuming both fighters are made with similar degrees of skill, the second fighter should win. If they aren't better (or at least more versatile) than the core only fighter, what is the point of having other books than the core one for fighters?
Second issue is page space. If you look in your Core rule book, you'll notice that the monster list takes up a good deal of space, so logically speaking, a fellow could deduce that by increasing the amount of books to draw on by 5, that section would grow my an equivalent amount leaving less space for other things. That also true, but what better book to put it in that a hardcover? If you take out five pages of a player's companion it is going a far greater loss in content than if you take out the same number in a hardcover. Besides if you put in a hardcover it is in the SRD so you never really have to waste in printing it again.
Now in an ideal world the Summon Nature's Ally list would get a similar list in Ultimate Wilderness, but that ship has (probably) sailed seeing as it all written up and sent to the printers by now, but I can still hope that Summon Monster gets a chance. To be clear, I don't think Paizo HAS to do this or anything, this is just something I would LIKE to see. So to anyone reading this who doesn't get what I have rambling about for last while
Just my two CP, though.
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Every class in the game should get more powerful as the game ages
Ever had a moderately competent player take a core Wizard with Summon Good Monster and Summon Guardian Spirit feats at your table?
Summoning is the second most OP Wizard spec after Divination. There are feats that expand your summon list out there. Since Wizards and Sorcs aren't exactly feat-starved classes, you can pick them easily.
Full casters are the most ridicously powerful classes in the game. if anything, their versatility and ability to respond to any situation should be toned down, not ramped up.
The "every class should get more powerful with splatbooks" argument would hold some grounds if core Rogue and core Wizard were close enough in power level. They aren't.
Every class in the game should get more powerful as the game agesEver had a moderately competent player take a core Wizard with Summon Good Monster and Summon Guardian Spirit feats at your table?
Summoning is the second most OP Wizard spec after Divination. There are feats that expand your summon list out there. Since Wizards and Sorcs aren't exactly feat-starved classes, you can pick them easily.
Full casters are the most ridicously powerful classes in the game. if anything, their versatility and ability to respond to any situation should be toned down, not ramped up.
The "every class should get more powerful with splatbooks" argument would hold some grounds if core Rogue and core Wizard were close enough in power level. They aren't.
Rogues have gotten better over the years. It is just that everyone else has gotten better to an greater extent than the rogue. As for casters, I like my games to be real high power affairs. I can see from your previous posts that you don't particularly like 9th level casters and all the ridiculous stuff they can do. That is fine. I like 9th level casters and all the reality warping they can do. That is also fine. Neither of us are right since it is a matter of opinion. Granted, I had hoped that since Starfinder proved to be a more low magic game comparatively that there would be more room for high level shenanigans in Pathfinder proper, as people who don't like that sort of thing have something that is more to their taste, but I guess you can't have everything. ;)
I would prefer more specialized summoning spells like ones devoted to a creature type, subtype, and/or even one specific creature.
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I would prefer more specialized summoning spells like ones devoted to a creature type, subtype, and/or even one specific creature.
I wouldn't mind something like this either - we saw a taste of it in the original Book of the Damned: Horsemen of the Apocalypse. However, it's incredibly space-intensive, and people who've gotten used to the utopia that is summon monster wouldn't have much use for it.
Yeah but we already have a spell to summon a black pudding(and nothing else) so you could have one for unicorn, griffin, dragon horse, etc. I would love one that summons a bunch of gremlins.
I would prefer more specialized summoning spells like ones devoted to a creature type, subtype, and/or even one specific creature.
Such as the summon extraplanar dragon spells in the Book of Magic: Dragons Spells and Archetypes, yes?
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Yeah but we already have a spell to summon a black pudding(and nothing else) so you could have one for unicorn, griffin, dragon horse, etc. I would love one that summons a bunch of gremlins.
Oh yeah! Gremlin summoning FTW!!!
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Every class in the game should get more powerful as the game ages
No no no...oh god no. This is power creep which most gamers dread. I am fine with giving classes new options and buffing up some underperforming classes/character concepts, but newer books should not eliminate the need for older books. If that is actually necessary, just go ahead and do a new edition.
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I would love one that summons a bunch of gremlins.Oh yeah! Gremlin summoning FTW!!!
{pops into thread, looks around in surprise} Hey, how did I get here?
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Hunt, you are here because I summoned you;)
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Yeeeeeeeeeeeah, about that...
Ok? Go ahead, I'm listening...
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On top of that, versatility is just as much a source of power - if not more - than raw strength. And summon monster is already an incredibly, overwhelmingly versatile spell. I've seen summoners summon monsters for everything from skills like Disable Device to specific spell-like abilities. One summon monster spell can be as versatile as a haversack full of scrolls and a pile of freely-reassignable skill ranks.
Now, that said... much of that strength already exists on the basic list. So additions aren't automatically going to magnify its power. But I would tread carefully with free expansion to the list.
And I can definitely understand the desire to see summoning expanded to the new monsters we constantly receive. ^_^
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It should have been kinda self explanatory, adding and adding and adding options to a list of options and making sure they're all equal is daunting, it not outright impossible.
It might be daunting, but I did exactly that. Here's how:
I looked up the CRs for all monsters on the summon monster I list. They are all CR 1/3 or CR 1/2. I kept going and found the pattern for all the summon monster lists (yes, I checked every single monster on the summon monster lists to make sure the pattern was correct). Then it was just a matter of going through all the Bestiaries and finding extraplanar outsiders (no native outsiders were on the list) and vermin and animals in the appropriate CR ranges to have the appropriate templates added.
It was an intense few hours but it was fun.
At the end of the day, this is what we at JBE do: make sure that everything we produce is balanced. We don't produce material anywhere near as fast as others but that is because when we produce something, we make sure it is balanced. That is what we do.
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It should have been kinda self explanatory, adding and adding and adding options to a list of options and making sure they're all equal is daunting, it not outright impossible.It might be daunting, but I did exactly that. Here's how:
I looked up the CRs for all monsters on the summon monster I list. They are all CR 1/3 or CR 1/2. I kept going and found the pattern for all the summon monster lists (yes, I checked every single monster on the summon monster lists to make sure the pattern was correct). Then it was just a matter of going through all the Bestiaries and finding extraplanar outsiders (no native outsiders were on the list) and vermin and animals in the appropriate CR ranges to have the appropriate templates added.
It was an intense few hours but it was fun.
At the end of the day, this is what we at JBE do: make sure that everything we produce is balanced. We don't produce material anywhere near as fast as others but that is because when we produce something, we make sure it is balanced. That is what we do.
... so your claim for balance is that you're are only adhering to CR, rather than comparing and overseeing the individual abilities of each creature?
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Since versatility is power, more versatility in choices ends up in greater power.
- EDIT - Ninjas everywhere
That said I am ok with updating the Summon lists.
Easiest way, though would be to have either an entry in the stat blocks of creatures telling what Summon spells, if any, works for them (ideal solution, probably not so easily implemented) or an appendix in each Bestiary listing the monsters in the Bestiary by Summon spells :-)
This way we would not have to update tables again and again
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On top of that, versatility is just as much a source of power - if not more - than raw strength.
Sure. However, the basic list lacks the ability for a person to theme their characters well. If you are in a desert environment and you want to summon something to ride, your only real option is a horse. You should be able to summon a camel from Bestiary 2. Asian-themed adventure, how about an elk from Bestiary 3.
If you want to theme a character as a spider summoner, you could only summon the giant spider on the summon monster II list. My revision has spiders on all the lists except III and IX.
The first Bestiary lacked good outsiders in any significant numbers. This was corrected in later bestiaries when Paizo had the time to fill out the world, but by not expanding the list, they made it so that those that summon evil outsiders are at a serious advantage. The only thing a good summoner can summon using VIII (besides multiple lower level monsters) is an elemental. Literally, the list has 3 entries on it, a demon, a devil and elementals. These were a serious oversights that needed corrected.
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... so your claim for balance is that you're are only adhering to CR, rather than comparing and overseeing the individual abilities of each creature?
To figure out which list they belong in, yes. To figure out if they should be on the list at all, no. I did exclude some outsiders that I felt simply did not belong on the list to begin with. Some I scratched my head on and thought about it. More often than not, however, if I questioned it more than a little, I excluded it.
However, I did not feel that there existed any reason for daemons to not be on the expanded list. Kytons should be there as well since the original kyton is on the list. Inevitables and proteans are on this list since summon monster should also have law and chaos instead of just good and evil. Megafauna definitely belong there for those that want to summon powerful animals and add a template.
Oni definitely are not on the list because they are native outsiders. Same with oreads, tieflings, aasimars, ...
They really don't need to add to the monster summoning list though alternate list are always welcome, especially if you don't need a specific feat, archetype, magic item, etc. to use them.
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They really don't need to add to the monster summoning list though alternate list are always welcome, especially if you don't need a specific feat, archetype, magic item, etc. to use them.
My personal take on it is that a spellcaster gets a number of creatures equal to your ranks in Knowledge (planes) from the list. Each time you add a rank, you can add another creature from the list.
Additionally, the spellcaster can research it in a library or summon up an outsider and ask them.
If I still ran a pathfinder game, I'd add that as a house rule. But I haven't run a pathfinder game in a long time.
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... so your claim for balance is that you're are only adhering to CR, rather than comparing and overseeing the individual abilities of each creature?Primarily, yes. Only, no. I did exclude some outsiders that I felt simply did not belong on the list to begin with. Some I scratched my head on and thought about it. More often than not, however, if I questioned it more than a little, I excluded it.
However, I did not feel that there existed any reason for daemons to not be on the expanded list. Kytons should be there as well since the original kyton is on the list. Inevitables and proteans are on this list since summon monster should also have law and chaos instead of just good and evil. Megafauna definitely belong there for those that want to summon powerful animals and add a template.
Oni definitely are not on the list because they are native outsiders. Same with oreads, tieflings, aasimars, ...
As Isabelle succinctly summed up, I'd be more concerned with the SLAs and other unique abilities of certain creatures, rather than allowing or disallowing certain groups of creatures.
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Indeed. Things like camels or spiders aren't terribly concerning, since their contribution is still combat and their powers aren't terribly specialized. And I am sympathetic to the desire for theme. As previously noted, however, CR is not necessarily a good metric for this sort of thing. It might give you a rough idea of combat power, but not versatility or access to specific magic.
With their mastery of both skill and spell, outsiders must be most carefully considered. Every one you add to the base list is added for everyone, not just angel-themed characters. You're adding another on-command skill, another pile of spell-like abilities, another special attack... another perfect trump card for a given situation.
(Paizo solves this by adding options via the various rings of summoning affinity and the Summon -Aligned- Monster feats, adding a level of necessary investment for the power increase while allowing themed characters to specialize.)
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My personal take on it is that a spellcaster gets a number of creatures equal to your ranks in Knowledge (planes) from the list. Each time you add a rank, you can add another creature from the list.
Additionally, the spellcaster can research it in a library or summon up an outsider and ask them.
If I still ran a pathfinder game, I'd add that as a house rule. But I haven't run a pathfinder game in a long time.
I didn't see this the first time around. This isn't a bad way to approach the situation - simple, efficient, and limited.
So, quick question: Does a "Planar Adventures" book entail the accompanying "Planar Origins" and "Planar Realms", like Mythic, Horror and Occult did?
I am sure that the book will not have any new classes though I would love to be wrong;)
Is it safe to assume that this book will be a much needed update to "The Great Beyond" campaign setting book?