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A tricky one perhaps - have you ever considered a more fantasy/starwarsy division into Light and Darkness rather than Good and Evil(tm)
Got the idea looking at how some fun with antipaladins can never be used in PFS and how many people don't want "evil" characters in their party, due to the "evil" mostly being a pretext to being a jerk to the party itself.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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StDrake wrote:

A tricky one perhaps - have you ever considered a more fantasy/starwarsy division into Light and Darkness rather than Good and Evil(tm)

Got the idea looking at how some fun with antipaladins can never be used in PFS and how many people don't want "evil" characters in their party, due to the "evil" mostly being a pretext to being a jerk to the party itself.

I prefer good vs. evil in my games. Mostly because my favorite alignment is chaotic good, and I'd rather not play in a game that demonizes chaos. (And I think that an antipaladin would still be an antipaladin and be on the darkness side anyway, so that wouldn't change anything there.)

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
James Jacobs wrote:
StDrake wrote:

A tricky one perhaps - have you ever considered a more fantasy/starwarsy division into Light and Darkness rather than Good and Evil(tm)

Got the idea looking at how some fun with antipaladins can never be used in PFS and how many people don't want "evil" characters in their party, due to the "evil" mostly being a pretext to being a jerk to the party itself.
I prefer good vs. evil in my games. Mostly because my favorite alignment is chaotic good, and I'd rather not play in a game that demonizes chaos. (And I think that an antipaladin would still be an antipaladin and be on the darkness side anyway, so that wouldn't change anything there.)

Have you read any of the Moorcock books, in particular ones besides Elric/Corum/Hawkmoon series?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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LazarX wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
StDrake wrote:

A tricky one perhaps - have you ever considered a more fantasy/starwarsy division into Light and Darkness rather than Good and Evil(tm)

Got the idea looking at how some fun with antipaladins can never be used in PFS and how many people don't want "evil" characters in their party, due to the "evil" mostly being a pretext to being a jerk to the party itself.
I prefer good vs. evil in my games. Mostly because my favorite alignment is chaotic good, and I'd rather not play in a game that demonizes chaos. (And I think that an antipaladin would still be an antipaladin and be on the darkness side anyway, so that wouldn't change anything there.)
Have you read any of the Moorcock books, in particular ones besides Elric/Corum/Hawkmoon series?

Yup, and I quite love them.


You said c.s. lewis was not a good writer. Now i want to ask you where you talking about all of his written works or just the chronicles of narnia books?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

xavier c wrote:
You said c.s. lewis was not a good writer. Now i want to ask you where you talking about all of his written works or just the chronicles of narnia books?

I'm talking about the Narnia books, which I did not enjoy, nor did I see much in there to compel me to seek out his other works.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
James Jacobs wrote:
xavier c wrote:
You said c.s. lewis was not a good writer. Now i want to ask you where you talking about all of his written works or just the chronicles of narnia books?
I'm talking about the Narnia books, which I did not enjoy, nor did I see much in there to compel me to seek out his other works.

Michael Moorcock talked about meeting C.S.Lewis in his very younger days. But he has no particular love for Lewis' works, nor Tolkien's for that matter. Do you know what's the deal with Moorcock and the British group Hawkwind?


Cross posting from another thread... I remembered that you are a horror fan.

Do you prefer low budget or the slick high end commercial stuff?

If you don't mind low budget can I recommend the Ozploitation period (early 70's late 80's) of Australian film and its revival (Post 2003)

From the early period you get classics (not including Mad Max) like:

The Cars That Ate Paris... the film is set in the fictional town of Paris in which most of the inhabitants appear to be directly, or indirectly, involved in profiting from the results of car accidents.

Patrick.... A comatose hospital patient harasses and kills though his powers of telekinesis to claim his private nurse as his own. (Tinkergoth informed me there is a remake)

Roadgames.... A truck driver plays a cat-and-mouse game with a mysterious serial killer who uses a young female hitchhiker as bait to lure victims on a desolate Australian highway. (The film stars Stacy Keach as a truck driver, and Jamie Lee Curtis as a hitchhiker.)

Razorback.... The film revolves around the attacks of a gigantic wild boar terrorizing the Australian outback, killing and devouring people.

Dead End Drive-In... a teenage couple trapped in a drive-in theater which is really a concentration camp for societal rejects. The inmates, many of whom sport punk fashion, are fed a steady diet of junk food, new wave music, drugs, and bad movies.

Then there is stuff like Howling III The Marsupials, Houseboat Horror (worst Australian movie ever made) Turkey Shoot, and Sky Pirates (gives Houseboat Horror a run for its money).

On the Revival end of things there are movies like Wolf Creek...

Rogue is a 2007 Australian independent horror film about a group of tourists in Australia who fall prey to a giant, man-eating crocodile.

Black Water is a 2007 horror-thriller film set in the mangrove seas of northern Australia.

Dying Breed interweaves the two most fascinating icons of Tasmanian history: the extinct Tasmanian tiger and "The Pieman" (aka Alexander Pearce) who was hanged for cannibalism in 1824.

Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead (2014) Barry is a talented mechanic and family man whose life is torn apart on the eve of a zombie apocalypse. His sister, Brooke, is kidnapped by a sinister team of gas-mask wearing soldiers

The 2008 documentary feature Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! explores Ozploitation films made during the Australian New Wave. The film includes interviews with numerous figures involved in Ozploitation, as well as fans of the genre, including American director Quentin Tarantino.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Have you had a vacation abroad? If not, which place abroad you would like to go to for vacation?

I started playing Pillars of Eternity right away after it unlocked on steam and I have played it 49 hours before I completed all quests including main quest. Is that unhealthy?

Do you consider yourself to be a person with very strong opinions?

Did you just say that you'd like even Pathfinder dating sim? O_o I didn't know you play visual novels or did I misunderstand something?

Do you prefer playing same type of characters or do you prefer making very different characters from each other?

Contributor

Have you worked out what game you will be running at PaizoCon?


1. Why do you think Urgathoa's priests have a female majority.

2. Are there any other of the main 20 deities have a female majority clergy?

3. In The Choking Tower in the Iron Gods Adventure Path, do you think Ilaris would be a follower of Calistria given her revenge driven tendencies?

4. In the Curse of the Crimson Throne, is Lady Andaisin from Cheliax or Korsova I don't think that Adventure Path was clear on her origins.


James Jacobs wrote:
Kalindlara wrote:

Hey, I couldn't find this in a thread search, so I decided to ask. Sorry if this has been asked before. (It's about Mythic, too. Sorry.)

One of my Wrath of the Righteous players is taking the full Divine Source series for his paladin. One of the (sub)domains he wants is Resurrection, which would give the character raise dead, resurrection, and true resurrection as spell-like abilities (removing the gp cost). Which way of handling this do you think would be best?

1) Allow the full use of these abilities, with no gp cost, just as written. Free resurrections!

2) Allow the use of the spell-like abilities, but require the player to provide material components.

3) Deny the subdomain entirely. I'd rather avoid this option, though...

For context, I'm planning for the campaign to go to 20th level and 10 tiers, just as written. Also, the party has no cleric, just an inquisitor and a bloodrager.

Thank you! :)

1) Allow full use. Mythic is mythic, after all. Frankly, I think that the GP cost for resurrections is kinda lame. It's already bad enough if your character dies since you have to sit quietly at the game table and not play and watch while everyone else has fun and you get to stew in the humiliation of being dead. Having to spend money to fix that is kinda kicking someone when they're down.

I would MUCH rather have an in-world reason why not everyone gets raised than "only the rich get it."

There is.

Spells that raise the dead are pretty high-level, meaning that the people capable of casting it are very few and far between. Indeed, if the Catholic Church were an RPG-style religion, you'd probably be lucky to find a Bishop who could cast Raise Dead, let alone Resurrection. Hell(pun unintended), the latter probably wouldn't be garunteed at the Cardinal level.


I'm not sure if you're the right person to ask, but you're a good starting point at least.

I'm looking to reverse-engineer a few rules to get a feel for the underlying assumptions, expectations, and targets... both so I can have a firmer sense of how to adjust encounters for my parties, and also for some general game design.

Is it fair to say that the stat blocks available for the iconic characters are roughly representative of the power level Paizo adventure and monster designers build for?

(This will help me reverse engineer things like expected chance to hit with primary attack, or how likely a monster is to make a save. Good both for figuring out how much to beef up the monsters in my games, and for non-Pathfinder design.)


After reading Andoran: Spirit of Liberty, I was disappointed by Almas University. I was creating an Andoren Arcanist who studied in Almas so I wanted to know more about the University but it seems more like a University on Earth than the Acadamae in Korvosa.

Is there a University in Almas like Theumanexus College and is there a place I can find details on it?

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Did you know that in the Living Force Campaign, Almas was the name used for the planet that hosted the heretical Jedi Temple that operated under some .... different rules than Coruscant?


LazarX wrote:
Did you know that in the Living Force Campaign, Almas was the name used for the planet that hosted the heretical Jedi Temple that operated under some .... different rules than Coruscant?

I did not. Did you know it's a mythological monster in Turkish mythology?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

LazarX wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
xavier c wrote:
You said c.s. lewis was not a good writer. Now i want to ask you where you talking about all of his written works or just the chronicles of narnia books?
I'm talking about the Narnia books, which I did not enjoy, nor did I see much in there to compel me to seek out his other works.
Michael Moorcock talked about meeting C.S.Lewis in his very younger days. But he has no particular love for Lewis' works, nor Tolkien's for that matter. Do you know what's the deal with Moorcock and the British group Hawkwind?

It sounds like Moorcock and I have similar tastes. Having read his stuff, I can't say that I'm surprised.

And dunno about Hawkwind at all.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

1 person marked this as a favorite.
The 8th Dwarf wrote:

Cross posting from another thread... I remembered that you are a horror fan.

Do you prefer low budget or the slick high end commercial stuff?

If you don't mind low budget can I recommend the Ozploitation period (early 70's late 80's) of Australian film and its revival (Post 2003)

From the early period you get classics (not including Mad Max) like:

The Cars That Ate Paris... the film is set in the fictional town of Paris in which most of the inhabitants appear to be directly, or indirectly, involved in profiting from the results of car accidents.

Patrick.... A comatose hospital patient harasses and kills though his powers of telekinesis to claim his private nurse as his own. (Tinkergoth informed me there is a remake)

Roadgames.... A truck driver plays a cat-and-mouse game with a mysterious serial killer who uses a young female hitchhiker as bait to lure victims on a desolate Australian highway. (The film stars Stacy Keach as a truck driver, and Jamie Lee Curtis as a hitchhiker.)

Razorback.... The film revolves around the attacks of a gigantic wild boar terrorizing the Australian outback, killing and devouring people.

Dead End Drive-In... a teenage couple trapped in a drive-in theater which is really a concentration camp for societal rejects. The inmates, many of whom sport punk fashion, are fed a steady diet of junk food, new wave music, drugs, and bad movies.

Then there is stuff like Howling III The Marsupials, Houseboat Horror (worst Australian movie ever made) Turkey Shoot, and Sky Pirates (gives Houseboat Horror a run for its money).

On the Revival end of things there are movies like Wolf Creek...

Rogue is a 2007 Australian independent horror film about a group of tourists in Australia who fall prey to a giant, man-eating crocodile.

Black Water is a 2007 horror-thriller film set in the mangrove seas of northern Australia.

Dying Breed interweaves the two most fascinating icons of Tasmanian history: the extinct Tasmanian tiger and "The Pieman" (aka Alexander Pearce) who was hanged for cannibalism in 1824.

Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead (2014) Barry is a talented mechanic and family man whose life is torn apart on the eve of a zombie apocalypse. His sister, Brooke, is kidnapped by a sinister team of gas-mask wearing soldiers

The 2008 documentary feature Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! explores Ozploitation films made during the Australian New Wave. The film includes interviews with numerous figures involved in Ozploitation, as well as fans of the genre, including American director Quentin Tarantino.

I prefer well-crafted horror. That can be low budget or high-end, but it tends to be weighted toward low budget since there's less studio interference in low budget stuff, and that lets the director/writer get more edgy and push more boundaries.

I've seen a few of the movies you've mentioned. I've particularly fond memories of Razorback, and both Rogue and Black Water are absolutely incredible. Dying Breed was pretty cool too. Wolf Creek is one of the few horror movies that I actually did NOT enjoy all that much; Rogue was MUCH better.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

CorvusMask wrote:

Have you had a vacation abroad? If not, which place abroad you would like to go to for vacation?

I started playing Pillars of Eternity right away after it unlocked on steam and I have played it 49 hours before I completed all quests including main quest. Is that unhealthy?

Do you consider yourself to be a person with very strong opinions?

Did you just say that you'd like even Pathfinder dating sim? O_o I didn't know you play visual novels or did I misunderstand something?

Do you prefer playing same type of characters or do you prefer making very different characters from each other?

Nope; I've actually never left the USA. And in fact, barring Gen Con, I've never left the West Coast.

If you played 49 hours non-stop, then yes, that's unhealthy. If you took breaks and moderated your game time, then no, it's not.

I do.

I'm not a fan of visual novels, really, but I love choose-your-own-adventure type books, particularly Fighting Fantasy. For video games, I just prefer more interaction. The dating sim comment was as much an interest in seeing one done as it was an interest in seeing as many different types of games done set in Golarion as possible, particularly if they're in genres I prefer for video games.

I generally play similar characters in games.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

donato wrote:
Have you worked out what game you will be running at PaizoCon?

Yup; did that back in January.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Patrickthekid wrote:

1. Why do you think Urgathoa's priests have a female majority.

2. Are there any other of the main 20 deities have a female majority clergy?

3. In The Choking Tower in the Iron Gods Adventure Path, do you think Ilaris would be a follower of Calistria given her revenge driven tendencies?

4. In the Curse of the Crimson Throne, is Lady Andaisin from Cheliax or Korsova I don't think that Adventure Path was clear on her origins.

1) Because they traditionally did in my homebrew setting.

2) Yes; Lamashtu and Pharasma do for sure.

3) She's not all that religious, but I guess Calistria makes a fair amount of sense.

4) It's not clear and doesn't really matter, but she's Korvosan.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

PhelanArcetus wrote:

I'm not sure if you're the right person to ask, but you're a good starting point at least.

I'm looking to reverse-engineer a few rules to get a feel for the underlying assumptions, expectations, and targets... both so I can have a firmer sense of how to adjust encounters for my parties, and also for some general game design.

Is it fair to say that the stat blocks available for the iconic characters are roughly representative of the power level Paizo adventure and monster designers build for?

(This will help me reverse engineer things like expected chance to hit with primary attack, or how likely a monster is to make a save. Good both for figuring out how much to beef up the monsters in my games, and for non-Pathfinder design.)

No. The stat blocks for the iconics are variable. Some versions are meant to be easy to understand and standardized for ease of play in the Pathfinder Society. Some versions are meant to be customized for earlier Adventure Paths. Some versions are meant to simply portray them as the characters they are, personality wise. They are NOT meant to be anything close to "optimized" characters for their class, and in fact, most of them deliberately make choices that optimizers gnash their teeth at.

The BEST way to get a firmer sense on how to adjust encounters for your players is NOT to reverse engineer other people's work, but to pay attention to how your OWN design works and interacts with your group, and constantly adjust things to compensate for their own strengths and weaknesses.

When we build encounters and monsters, we generally assume a middle-level of player experience and a 15 point buy for a character with a party of 4 or MAYBE 5 characters. For Pathfinder Society adventures, we assume a group of 6 with 20 point buy and a LOT higher player skill... or at least, that's what we SHOULD assume.

Table 1–1 in the first appendix of the Bestiary is what we assume for building monsters, though.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Larkos wrote:

After reading Andoran: Spirit of Liberty, I was disappointed by Almas University. I was creating an Andoren Arcanist who studied in Almas so I wanted to know more about the University but it seems more like a University on Earth than the Acadamae in Korvosa.

Is there a University in Almas like Theumanexus College and is there a place I can find details on it?

Unrevealed at this time beyond what we've published. Not every location has the best of everything, and it may well be that universities in Andoran are just less interesting to you.


James Jacobs wrote:
Larkos wrote:

After reading Andoran: Spirit of Liberty, I was disappointed by Almas University. I was creating an Andoren Arcanist who studied in Almas so I wanted to know more about the University but it seems more like a University on Earth than the Acadamae in Korvosa.

Is there a University in Almas like Theumanexus College and is there a place I can find details on it?

Unrevealed at this time beyond what we've published. Not every location has the best of everything, and it may well be that universities in Andoran are just less interesting to you.

I didn't mean to say that having a non-magical University isn't interesting; it's just not what I needed for this specific character. I apologize if that's how you took it.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

LazarX wrote:
Did you know that in the Living Force Campaign, Almas was the name used for the planet that hosted the heretical Jedi Temple that operated under some .... different rules than Coruscant?

Nope.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Larkos wrote:
LazarX wrote:
Did you know that in the Living Force Campaign, Almas was the name used for the planet that hosted the heretical Jedi Temple that operated under some .... different rules than Coruscant?
I did not. Did you know it's a mythological monster in Turkish mythology?

Yes.

Silver Crusade

Sorry to keep bombarding you about but what little you have played of Bloodborne are you liking it?

What about the setting?

The Victorian-Gothic Atmosphere?

The creatures?

The combat redesign?

I'm waiting for my copy to come in so it's driving me up the wall :3

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Rysky wrote:

Sorry to keep bombarding you about but what little you have played of Bloodborne are you liking it?

What about the setting?

The Victorian-Gothic Atmosphere?

The creatures?

The combat redesign?

I'm waiting for my copy to come in so it's driving me up the wall :3

I pretty much love all of it. Except the long load times when you die.

Silver Crusade

James Jacobs wrote:
Rysky wrote:

Sorry to keep bombarding you about but what little you have played of Bloodborne are you liking it?

What about the setting?

The Victorian-Gothic Atmosphere?

The creatures?

The combat redesign?

I'm waiting for my copy to come in so it's driving me up the wall :3

I pretty much love all of it. Except the long load times when you die.

I'm experiencing that atm.

DAMN YOU FREE SHIPPING!

Grand Lodge

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Larkos wrote:
LazarX wrote:
Did you know that in the Living Force Campaign, Almas was the name used for the planet that hosted the heretical Jedi Temple that operated under some .... different rules than Coruscant?
I did not. Did you know it's a mythological monster in Turkish mythology?

Sounds like a job for Turkish Superman!

Contributor

Rysky wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
Rysky wrote:

Sorry to keep bombarding you about but what little you have played of Bloodborne are you liking it?

What about the setting?

The Victorian-Gothic Atmosphere?

The creatures?

The combat redesign?

I'm waiting for my copy to come in so it's driving me up the wall :3

I pretty much love all of it. Except the long load times when you die.

I'm experiencing that atm.

DAMN YOU FREE SHIPPING!

Just wait until you actually have it and have to sit at work all day waiting for the day to end to get back to it. Agony!

If you were given the chance to steal three enemies from the Souls series to port to Pathfinder, what would you chose?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

donato wrote:
If you were given the chance to steal three enemies from the Souls series to port to Pathfinder, what would you chose?

They're all pretty awesome, and a lot of them are things we kinda already have in the game. One that would be fun to include would be the phalanx from the Painted World.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Given your long association with Pathfinder and D+D, have you played any of the Neverwinter online games?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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LazarX wrote:
Given your long association with Pathfinder and D+D, have you played any of the Neverwinter online games?

Nope. I kinda lost interest in all things Faerun once Eilistraee went away.


Pathfinder Lost Omens, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
James Jacobs wrote:
LazarX wrote:
Given your long association with Pathfinder and D+D, have you played any of the Neverwinter online games?
Nope. I kinda lost interest in all things Faerun once Eilistraee went away.

Since she is officially dead in Faerun, would it be possible to create a minor goddess like her for Golarion? Perhaps a drow woman who became an Azata and then one of the Empyreal Lords?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

2 people marked this as a favorite.
zergtitan wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
LazarX wrote:
Given your long association with Pathfinder and D+D, have you played any of the Neverwinter online games?
Nope. I kinda lost interest in all things Faerun once Eilistraee went away.
Since she is officially dead in Faerun, would it be possible to create a minor goddess like her for Golarion? Perhaps a drow woman who became an Azata and then one of the Empyreal Lords?

Way ahead of you.

Sarenrae is pretty much my take on her—a female goddess of redemption and swordfighting. I swapped moon elements out for sun elements, but otherwise... Sarenrae is VERY much my take on Eilistraee. With Desna, of course, helping out with other elements along the way.


That's... interesting. Weird (EDIT: not in a bad way), but very interesting nonetheless.

Does that have anything to do with how Saranraen clerics tend to get more blonde/paler if of lighter complexion or darker if of darker complexion?

(It was a very interesting and slightly confusing addition - I would have pegged it the opposite, myself, though I could totally see this way, too; it just wasn't what I was thinking before-hand, and it took me a while to wrap my head around it. It would also be an interestingly subtle nod to Eilistraee...)

{Ala the Legacy of Fire article, if you need or want a reference.}

Similarly, does her affinity with red hair have anything to do with the "Masked Lady" changes toward the end of Eilistraee's career?

(That was one of the coolest and most fascinating things, very unfortunately cut far too short, in my opinion.)

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Tacticslion wrote:

That's... interesting. Weird (EDIT: not in a bad way), but very interesting nonetheless.

Does that have anything to do with how Saranraen clerics tend to get more blonde/paler if of lighter complexion or darker if of darker complexion?

(It was a very interesting and slightly confusing addition - I would have pegged it the opposite, myself, though I could totally see this way, too; it just wasn't what I was thinking before-hand, and it took me a while to wrap my head around it. It would also be an interestingly subtle nod to Eilistraee...)

{Ala the Legacy of Fire article, if you need or want a reference.}

Similarly, does her affinity with red hair have anything to do with the "Masked Lady" changes toward the end of Eilistraee's career?

(That was one of the coolest and most fascinating things, very unfortunately cut far too short, in my opinion.)

Nope; it has nothing whatsoever to do with skin tones or complexions or hair color. And the "Masked Lady" elements for Eilistraee are unknown to me—by that point, I'd more or less seen the writing on the wall for the Forgotten Realms and was distancing myself from the setting, partially because I had to focus more and more on Golarion, of course.


Makes sense! Very interesting ideas, though.

Any other relations between them?

I'd actually be curious to see any other parallels you'd draw with Eilistraee and Sarenrae or Desna.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Tacticslion wrote:

Makes sense! Very interesting ideas, though.

Any other relations between them?

I'd actually be curious to see any other parallels you'd draw with Eilistraee and Sarenrae or Desna.

Desna's got the night and the sensuality and the chaos aspects of Eilistraee represented, while Sarenrae's got the "swordfighting is art and dance" and the redemption angle covered. Beyond that, though... Sarenrae and Desna are very much their own deities whose areas of interest and faiths go beyond what Eilistraee covers. That said, one of the few Empyreal Lords I invented, Ashava, also has some Eilistraee elements to her as well.

But beyond those inspirations... that's pretty much as far as I would go. All of these deities are more interesting if they share some common inspirational ground but have lots of their own things to stand on.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
James Jacobs wrote:


Nope; I've actually never left the USA. And in fact, barring Gen Con, I've never left the West Coast.

I'm not a fan of visual novels, really, but I love choose-your-own-adventure type books, particularly Fighting Fantasy. For video games, I just prefer more interaction. The dating sim comment was as much an interest in seeing one done as it was an interest in seeing as many different types of games done set in Golarion as possible, particularly if they're in genres I prefer for video games.

1) Ah. Not much interest in traveling I take it?

2) Hmm, I see... Out of curisioty, have you played Ace Attourney series?

3) Now I got inspired to ask more game related questions: Do you prefer console or pc games in general? If the game is available on both I mean

4) Do you have brand loyalty for one or more of three main console developers or do you buy consoles based on exclusive games you are interested in?

5) Do you have favourite game company?

6) What are your favourite games outside of RPG genre?

7) Back to rpgs, have you played Alpha Protocol by Obsidian?

8) Have you any interest in handheld consoles?

9) Have you played Persona games?

Geez, thats a lot of questions <_<; Got bit excited about asking gaming questions...

Paizo Employee Creative Director

CorvusMask wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:


Nope; I've actually never left the USA. And in fact, barring Gen Con, I've never left the West Coast.

I'm not a fan of visual novels, really, but I love choose-your-own-adventure type books, particularly Fighting Fantasy. For video games, I just prefer more interaction. The dating sim comment was as much an interest in seeing one done as it was an interest in seeing as many different types of games done set in Golarion as possible, particularly if they're in genres I prefer for video games.

1) Ah. Not much interest in traveling I take it?

2) Hmm, I see... Out of curisioty, have you played Ace Attourney series?

3) Now I got inspired to ask more game related questions: Do you prefer console or pc games in general? If the game is available on both I mean

4) Do you have brand loyalty for one or more of three main console developers or do you buy consoles based on exclusive games you are interested in?

5) Do you have favourite game company?

6) What are your favourite games outside of RPG genre?

7) Back to rpgs, have you played Alpha Protocol by Obsidian?

8) Have you any interest in handheld consoles?

9) Have you played Persona games?

Geez, thats a lot of questions <_<; Got bit excited about asking gaming questions...

1) Not so much a lack of interest in traveling as it is too busy with work, and before that not being rich enough to be able to afford to travel.

2) Nope.

3) Depends on the game. I do enjoy the comfort of console gaming, since I get to sit on a couch, and since my surround sound is on the TV but not on the computer.

4) I tend to buy Xbox games but I'll get a game on the PS4 if it's an exclusive or if it's supposedly a better play experience.

5) Bioware, Obsidian, Bethesda, and From Software are all pretty much tied for that.

6) Half-Life 2 is my favorite non-RPG. Another five that come to mind off the top of my head would include Binding of Isaac, The Last of Us, Dying Light, Portal, and Hearthstone.

7) Nope.

8) Does iPad and iPhone count? If so, yes. If not, no.

9) Nope.


James Jacobs wrote:
Roshan wrote:
When you summon a creature using summon monster or summon natures ally, how does it work? Does it conjure a likeness of that creature to fight for you or does it bring a real creature from somewhere?

It summons a "copy" of an idealized incarnation of the creature. A summoned creature doesn't exist before you cast the spell, nor does it exist once the spell expires.

That's the difference between summoning spells and calling spells. Calling spells DO conjure a real creature.

James;

Does a Summoner's Eidolon exist with the same context, or does the Eidolon have an existence somewhere else independent of the PC?


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Hey, I've got a question about the Conjuration school and spell resistance.

The general consensus where I've asked around is that Conjuration manages to be far too powerful when compared to the other schools because unlike say necromancy, evocation or transmutation, it's spells tend to bypass spell resistance.

I get that the rationale for it is "Well, after you create the acid, it's just acid, not magic acid, so why should spell resistance count?" and such.

But it just strikes me as such a huge balance anomaly, especially at higher levels where spell resistance checks are harder.

Has there been any thought towards considering all attacks by conjured items or creatures 'magical' for purposes of Spell Resistance? Especially if, like the summoned creatures you describe for summon monster, they aren't an actual creature or substance pulled from somewhere, but an idealized version created by magic?

Of course, this wouldn't apply to Planar Ally or Gate that actually summon an actual creature from somewhere.


The Pathfinder rules call for various environmental effects to do non scaling by level hit point damage. For example extreme cold and suffocation do 1d6 damage per time unit of exposure (in the case of suffocation 15 minutes). I am interested in your thoughts as to how in game this works when PCs have around 100 hit points vs 1st level characters with say 10hp. The survival difference is 45 minutes compared to 420 minutes which seems to be quite variable.


Are there any plans for Sarusan or is it going to continue to stay as a more mysterious land with no specific stuff listed?


First, James, thanks for the clarification on the gods! I must admit, Ashava is pretty awesome...

AtomicGamer wrote:
Hey, I've got a question about the Conjuration school and spell resistance.

Although this is for James (I have a question here, I promise), I can at least note that "Spell Resistance" is noted as "not that important" at later levels by most casters, as it's relatively easily bypassed - while it's nice at lower levels, it quickly becomes (for most builds by most gamers that I'm familiar with) irrelevant. The fact that evocation is subject to SR is generally a factor against evocation, rather than for conjuration. The main place where it seems "especially powerful" is against, say, Golems who are immune.

Conjuration's power is generally seen due to being outside the scope of direct damage, and mostly about control, creation, and action-economy alteration. (Though adding an SR line of stuff would reduce its power somewhat.)

((Transmutation is generally considered extremely potent as well - perhaps just as much or almost as much as conjuration -, and necromancy is generally considered "just fine" for the most part except for the fact that conjuration "stole" a lot of its stuff, including curatives and the ability to raise the dead, which is another thing that makes conjuration so potent - the ability to imitate other spell schools.))

Which actually brings me to my actual question (which explains why the above is necessary to state first): James, do you tend to agree with the above consensus? Why or why not? Do the design principals Paizo adheres to tend to consider these types of opinions, or do you guys purposefully "tune out" those kinds of debates or ideas in order to better focus on what you're doing?

I mean this both from a rules-design paradigm as well as a story-design paradigm, both individually and at the same time.

It's certainly interesting (to me) that neither of the only two runelords to exist for the whole empire included Sloth...

Also, is there any part of the d20 system that you would more heavily alter to be different from 3.5 than you did, but were more faithful due to backwards compatibility? (I feel like you've answered this recently, but I'm afraid I don't recall where, or how.) If so which is the thing you'd most like to change?

Also: thanks for the thread, James! Really cool insights!


James Jacobs wrote:
PhelanArcetus wrote:

I'm not sure if you're the right person to ask, but you're a good starting point at least.

I'm looking to reverse-engineer a few rules to get a feel for the underlying assumptions, expectations, and targets... both so I can have a firmer sense of how to adjust encounters for my parties, and also for some general game design.

Is it fair to say that the stat blocks available for the iconic characters are roughly representative of the power level Paizo adventure and monster designers build for?

(This will help me reverse engineer things like expected chance to hit with primary attack, or how likely a monster is to make a save. Good both for figuring out how much to beef up the monsters in my games, and for non-Pathfinder design.)

No. The stat blocks for the iconics are variable. Some versions are meant to be easy to understand and standardized for ease of play in the Pathfinder Society. Some versions are meant to be customized for earlier Adventure Paths. Some versions are meant to simply portray them as the characters they are, personality wise. They are NOT meant to be anything close to "optimized" characters for their class, and in fact, most of them deliberately make choices that optimizers gnash their teeth at.

The BEST way to get a firmer sense on how to adjust encounters for your players is NOT to reverse engineer other people's work, but to pay attention to how your OWN design works and interacts with your group, and constantly adjust things to compensate for their own strengths and weaknesses.

When we build encounters and monsters, we generally assume a middle-level of player experience and a 15 point buy for a character with a party of 4 or MAYBE 5 characters. For Pathfinder Society adventures, we assume a group of 6 with 20 point buy and a LOT higher player skill... or at least, that's what we SHOULD assume.

Table 1–1 in the first appendix of the Bestiary is what we assume for building monsters, though.

I'm aware iconics are not optimized, and I'm quite fine that they're not. My goal was really to have a better sense of the PC equivalent of Bestiary Table 1-1; I know my PCs are more powerful than the adventure path assumes, but I was looking to get a somewhat more quantitative assessment of how much more powerful than the current qualitative assessment. That would, I think, make it easier for me to adapt existing published content to my game; providing a baseline for the adjustments to start from, at least.

I'm adjusting, but I'm still developing a feel for how much is suitable, and I was looking for a more... scientific approach, to treat it a bit less like an art form, at least until I get more comfortable.

That, and to unravel some of the underlying assumptions of Pathfinder for the sake of understanding them and deciding how I want to translate (or not) those assumptions to the system I'm oh-so-slowly designing.

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

How horribly illegal would it be for someone to make an "unofficial" Pathfinder video game under the premise that they would never ever see any money from it?

If such a game were created, law be damned, and it were good, would you play it?


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James Jacobs wrote:
Rysky wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
The first two plots have been translated into Pathfinder APs already—Curse of the Crimson Throne and Serpent's Skull. I've not yet translated the third into one yet, because I don't think management will let me kill off Irori with a transplanar supernatural immense faith parasite monster that siphons belief and digests it into anti-belief and then shoots it across the planes to kill a god.
What about Abadar?

So...

That's not what happened to Aroden, then?... o.O?

;p

Carry on! ^^

--C.

<edit> Emphasis added. </edit>

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