Over the course of its decades-long history, fantasy gaming has produced countless monsters both terrifying and alien, some pulled from mythology and others sprung full-formed from the twisted imaginations of their creators. Yet as with any idea, not every monster can be a winner. Or can it?
With Misfit Monsters Redeemed, Paizo Publishing has taken 10 of the most notoriously bad monsters in RPG history—the lamest, most hated, and flat-out silliest creatures in the genre—and attempted to make them fun allies and adversaries for players and Game Masters alike. Each monster comes complete with updated statistics for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, lengthy ecologies explaining how the monsters behave and why they are the way they are, tips on how Game Masters can use them in a campaign, notes on how to fit the monsters into the world of the Pathfinder campaign setting or your own home game, and more.
Inside this 64-page book, you'll find monsters such as:
Flumphs, everyone's favorite flying jellyfish monster, come from the stars to warn innocent civilizations of the cosmic horrors lurking in the darkness.
Disenchanters, the blue-furred camels who live to prey on adventurers' magical gear.
Flail snails, the magic-warping gastropods who weave slowly through the subterranean Darklands, writing epic poetry with their slime trails.
Doom-screeching dire corbies, the bird-headed terrors of the darkest caverns.
Lurking rays, the stealthy ambush predators that are really three manta-like monsters in one: the executioner's hood, the trapper, and the lurker above.
Adherers, those sticky, mummy-like monstrosities whose wrappings of flayed skin are the scarred relics of a horrible experiment by phase spiders from the Ethereal Plane.
Other loveable losers like the delver, the lava child, the tojanida, and of course, the infamous wolf-in-sheep's-clothing!
Misfit Monsters Redeemed is intended for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and Pathfinder campaign setting, but can easily be used in any fantasy game setting.
This book re-presents some of the weirdest monsters to come out of dnd over the years. I eagerly read this book and wanted to use everything inside. In the Sargava game I’ve been running prior to all the new material to aid games set there, I wanted to populate the southern continent with new and unusual monsters. I trawled through manuals grabbing monsters from other systems, other d20 products and fringe material. I actually added in a region well-populated by the flail snails, which the party travelled to, so it is amusing to see them added to golarion. What made me chuckle was the point that they can be found on all levels of the darklands (more encounters ahead delvers) and that they are actually intelligent and Zen Buddhist like in their philosophy. When the party of my game ran into them, spells re-bounded, hit allies, someone got set on fire, causing quite the fuss. It was really very funny. They are a counter to warlocks or invokers. Note: do not use the base reflection rules, use the d100 table provided, it adds a lot more possibilities. Moar flail snails!
The other monsters can be quite the added treat. I’ll throw in the adherer although I already did something similar by taking your average Osirion mummy, give him some fighter levels and the weapon locking feat. The various lurking rays are perfect to turn a bit of spelunking into a horror game, cornbys could be added as fringe tribes in unexplored regions, disenchanters could follow wizards around who have all their body slots filled (although I prefer nishruus), and the wolf-in-sheep’s clothing could get quite a chuckle, but a savvy adventurer will know to stay back from what is cute and fuzzy in nature.
Okay heres the deal I've played this game for more years than i care to think about and yeah there are some real stinkers out there. I was initially unsure about this title until I read that the wolf in sheeps clothing was getting reworked. A fan of the old expedition to the barrier peaks I had to see if the rework would make an old favorite of mine usable again. Much to my surprise it is as are most of the others in this book. There are a couple that although strictly speaking more playable than they used to be are still just a bit too odd to see much long term use. Everything in misfits could be used once or twice with ease and some of the creatures many times. Kudos to Paizo for bringing out the weird and making if fun. I personally would like to see a book 2 of fan voted stinkers reworked. How about it Paizo 10 more ?
Because of this book, flumphs have just become a critical part of one of my campaigns. That's how seriously it turns the critters around, people.
It takes some of the most loathed monsters in the history of the game, and it makes them into creatures that are awesome, if not necessarily 100% serious (flail snails remain a little on the silly side - that said, they're intelligently on the silly side.) And Dire Corbies have become downright scary, in a Descent kinda way.
I'm impressed. The writers took some of the oddest designed (or thrown together monsters) and made them work. I'm really really tempted to see how my party of aberation hunting characters deals with Flumphs or to see how much fun I can have with a disenchanter who finds itself attracted to my party. Oh the joy!
Seriously if you're on the fence about this product, take a deep breath and go for it. You won't be disappointed.
Nostalgia for the Grognards - a new twist for the newcomers!
I have been waiting for this book since I first heard of it in February. It did not disappoint. I love the reimaginings, making these lovable misfits from the past so much more practical to use.
An especial shout out to the Flumph, by Adam Daigle. As a fellow Flumphophile who stood at his side against the haters in the classic thread Go Flumph Yourself I was glad to see my faith in his handling of one of my favorite misfits was not misplaced. I now am searching for a plot opening to have a flumph emerge in my Planescape PbP the Chronicles of the Silver Rose Company warning of some Far Realm peril.
Kudos to all the contributors! You all did a smashing job!
The stated goal was to redeem some of the creatures from the classic game that just never quite worked. On almost all counts, this book succeeds. The Flail Snail is, for the first time, an interesting creature worthy of use. That's saying quite a lot given that it was the go-to example of silly monsters. The Flumph is a creature that Paizo has a history with and they continue to improve on, here.
I found myself unimpressed by the Adherer (which had a lot going on, but is still a sticky mummy) and a few others, but let's face it: I've never had a bestiary of any sort that I felt I wanted to make use of in its entirety, and the story ideas, examples and backgrounds in this book will keep me quite happy for some time to come.
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