Now available here in the Paizo.com store!

Now available here in the Paizo.com store!

It looks like Four Winds Fantasy really caught a wind (cheap pun intended) in their sails, this product looks like a great companion to the Bestiary.

Could we get a screen shot of what one of them looks like?

Just wondering for sure what info is included. Is it just knowledge check stuff or does it have the monster stat block as well?

They have some pictures on the product page at Drive thru

linkie

This product is JUST the information you would give a player about a creature. It's designed to be printed out on cards to be handed out. The info is organized by DC of the check so the DM knows how much to tell the player.

I'm not so sure about the card part of the idea. I don't think I'll be printing out the cards. I'll just be opening up the PDF searching for the monster and reading the section that is appropriate.

This is a great idea. I have been waiting for this product and have already purchased it. My players are always wanting to know what they "know" about a creature and this can be a great starting point for the DM to hand out that info.

While at the beginning of the PDF is states which knowledge skill would be used to "know" something about the creature it would be better if the card had the needed skill listed on it as well. Thus saving the DM the time of looking at the beginning of the PDF to look up the skill and then having to look up the card. Would be VERY helpful for new DMs especially.

Kizan

Could we get a screen shot of what one of them looks like?

Just wondering for sure what info is included. Is it just knowledge check stuff or does it have the monster stat block as well?

This product is JUST the information you would give a player about a creature. It's designed to be printed out on cards to be handed out. The info is organized by DC of the check so the DM knows how much to tell the player.

I'm not so sure about the card part of the idea. I don't think I'll be printing out the cards. I'll just be opening up the PDF searching for the monster and reading the section that is appropriate.

This is a great idea. I have been waiting for this product and have already purchased it. My players are always wanting to know what they "know" about a creature and this can be a great starting point for the DM to hand out that info.

While at the beginning of the PDF is states which knowledge skill would be used to "know" something about the creature it would be better if the card had the needed skill listed on it as well. Thus saving the DM the time of looking at the beginning of the PDF to look up the skill and then having to look up the card. Would be VERY helpful for new DMs especially.

Kizan

To answer Tilquinith's question, Kizan covered it pretty well! (And thanks to sanwah68 for the linkage!) The cards do not contain stats, just general information about the monsters. The higher the PC's Knowledge roll, the more they know - what the monster looks like, where they are typically found, how to defeat them, etc.

The cards do not have to be printed if you find it easier to just refer to the PDF. Having them printed out as cards is handy for GMs who don't game with their laptop at the ready, and if the player makes a Knowledge check of 25 or higher, you can just hand them a card instead of reading off to them what they know.

Kizan, regarding your suggestion for putting the type of Knowledge skill needed on each card - a very good idea, but unfortunately on most of the cards there's simply not room! I would suggest GMs either print out the page with the instructions on how to use the cards or make a simple cheat-sheet to keep handy, so they can look at that instead of having to go back and forth within the PDF. For those who print out the cards, the final page of the document has some blank cards, and one of those could be used for a hand-made cheat-sheet.

Enjoy!

Connie Thomson
4 Winds Fantasy Gaming

Could we get a screen shot of what one of them looks like?

Just wondering for sure what info is included. Is it just knowledge check stuff or does it have the monster stat block as well?

You can find a preview on our DriveThruRPG page of the product.

It is just knowledge check info for characters. No monster stats are included.

Robert Thomson
4 Winds Fantasy Gaming

Thanks for the info, it does look to be rather useful so I'll probably be picking it up.

Thanks for the info, it does look to be rather useful so I'll probably be picking it up.

We appreciate it!

Taking a look at the product preview pages it seems it ignores the knowledge skill DC being based on the CR (+ some number depending on rarity) and just gives flat DC's for all creatures. Anyone with the full product able to comment on that being correct?

Taking a look at the product preview pages it seems it ignores the knowledge skill DC being based on the CR (+ some number depending on rarity) and just gives flat DC's for all creatures. Anyone with the full product able to comment on that being correct?

We do not use the "DC 10 + Creature CR" formula for the monster cards. We felt that formula was a basic formula that could be used on the fly, but lacks the detail we lay out.

We also feel that how difficult a creature is to defeat or how dangerous it is should not affect how much someone might or might not know about it.

Our Knowledge checks are based on a standardized scaling of difficulty and the better your Knowledge check the more you know. Having varying DCs based on the creatures CR and rarity makes for a "roller-coaster" scale that still leads to players saying "but I rolled a 20 last week and didn't know as much as he knows, and he only rolled a 15!"

We do not use the "DC 10 + Creature CR" formula for the monster cards. We felt that formula was a basic formula that could be used on the fly, but lacks the detail we lay out.

We also feel that how difficult a creature is to defeat or how dangerous it is should not affect how much someone might or might not know about it.

Our Knowledge checks are based on a standardized scaling of difficulty and the better your Knowledge check the more you know. Having varying DCs based on the creatures CR and rarity makes for a "roller-coaster" scale that still leads to players saying "but I rolled a 20 last week and didn't know as much as he knows, and he only rolled a 15!"

thank you! Being able to identify every discernible butterfly variation but unable to really be sure that Huge thing is a Blue Dragon (probably something my 2 yr old could do, I mean it's blue and it's a dragon) always seemed weird.

thank you! Being able to identify every discernible butterfly variation but unable to really be sure that Huge thing is a Blue Dragon (probably something my 2 yr old could do, I mean it's blue and it's a dragon) always seemed weird.

You bet! That's pretty much the type of logic we started with.

Just bought it (will print up at work tomorrow), but it looks perfect, one of those things that you look at and wonder why it wasn't always on your radar.

Just bought it (will print up at work tomorrow), but it looks perfect, one of those things that you look at and wonder why it wasn't always on your radar.

Glad to hear it! Thank you!

Just out of curiosity, since most of the Pathfinder monsters are OGL creations, are there any plans to do cards like this for monsters in the Bestiary portion of the Adventure Paths or the Pathfinder adventures?

Just out of curiosity, since most of the Pathfinder monsters are OGL creations, are there any plans to do cards like this for monsters in the Bestiary portion of the Adventure Paths or the Pathfinder adventures?

At the moment, there is not. Since we had done cards for all the monsters in the d20 SRD we wanted to compliment those with cards for all the Bestiary and Bonus Bestiary monsters. We have too much on our plate to also add the monsters from AP that are Open Content.

My god...Christmas just came early for THIS DM. Thank you so much for making an amazing product!!!!

Only one question- will you be making something similar for spell effects? Or did you already(I'm at work and can't dedicate myself to a full search right now)?

My god...Christmas just came early for THIS DM. Thank you so much for making an amazing product!!!!

Thank you for the support!

Only one question- will you be making something similar for spell effects? Or did you already(I'm at work and can't dedicate myself to a full search right now)?

We actually haven't done anything like that yet, but something along that line is in our plans.

Freehold DM wrote:

My god...Christmas just came early for THIS DM. Thank you so much for making an amazing product!!!!

Thank you for the support!

Freehold DM wrote:

Only one question- will you be making something similar for spell effects? Or did you already(I'm at work and can't dedicate myself to a full search right now)?

We actually haven't done anything like that yet, but something along that line is in our plans.

Not to be a bother, but any idea as to when this may come to fruition? Should I look for it around christmas or wait until next year?

Not to be a bother, but any idea as to when this may come to fruition? Should I look for it around christmas or wait until next year?

Not until next year. Our print products have higher priority than the PDF products right now.

Freehold DM wrote:

Not to be a bother, but any idea as to when this may come to fruition? Should I look for it around christmas or wait until next year?

Not until next year. Our print products have higher priority than the PDF products right now.

Aww...kicks spell effects can down the street

Got it. This will be nice for my cleric with the knowledge domain.

Got it. This will be nice for my cleric with the knowledge domain.

Excellent! Glad to hear it!

Yup, bought it too. Looks nice!

Gonna print and gonna cut (at work, hence for free) and then it's going through its baptism of fire next week :-)

Good times!

Yup, bought it too. Looks nice!

Gonna print and gonna cut (at work, hence for free) and then it's going through its baptism of fire next week :-)

Good times!

Awesome! We appreciate the support!

Hey, you keep churning out the good stuff, we keep supporting :-)

I agree with the posters above that this is a very interesting project.

My only concern is that it doesn't address rarity. The DCs for an Orc should be lower than an Archon for instance.

It also could be adjusted for CR. Lower level characters would know less about upper level monsters. Monsters with unusual origins should have a more difficult DC, because they come from places of origin that lower level PCs have, more than likely, not experienced.

Again, nice concept.

This is the kind of product that can be moved into iPod touch & iPhone, please consider doing it.

I agree with the posters above that this is a very interesting project.

My only concern is that it doesn't address rarity. The DCs for an Orc should be lower than an Archon for instance.

It also could be adjusted for CR. Lower level characters would know less about upper level monsters. Monsters with unusual origins should have a more difficult DC, because they come from places of origin that lower level PCs have, more than likely, not experienced.

Again, nice concept.

We felt that a standardized scale that did not fluctuate with monster CR was better. Rarity is implied in what a character knows at certain DCs. The better you roll, the more you know, no matter the creature. We felt it shouldn't be any harder to know basic information about an archon than it is for an orc.

This is the kind of product that can be moved into iPod touch & iPhone, please consider doing it.

We might consider that. Thanks for the suggestion.

Robert
4 Winds Fantasy Gaming

I just bought this and a couple of the other ones, due to my recent buys and reviews of other 4 winds stuff. I have to agree it would have been nice to have what skill was required but I agree also it would have been a tight fit. But that got me thinking. Why not do colored icons of each skill, like a red circle with a white celtic cross for religion, maybe a blue circle with a eye for arcane etc. Then you could put the icons in each of the 4 corners of each card. Then add a final card that list all the skills with there icon next to them and then at a glance people would know.

Anyways just a thought I had that I thought I would share.

I just bought this and a couple of the other ones, due to my recent buys and reviews of other 4 winds stuff. I have to agree it would have been nice to have what skill was required but I agree also it would have been a tight fit. But that got me thinking. Why not do colored icons of each skill, like a red circle with a white celtic cross for religion, maybe a blue circle with a eye for arcane etc. Then you could put the icons in each of the 4 corners of each card. Then add a final card that list all the skills with there icon next to them and then at a glance people would know.

Anyways just a thought I had that I thought I would share.

That's not a bad idea. We might have to do an update to it and include something like that...

Glad you like the idea.

I posted my official review of the product up.

I posted my official review of the product up.

Thank you very much!

Dark_Mistress wrote:

I posted my official review of the product up.

Thank you very much!

YW, though I do hope in the somewhat near future decided to come up with a way to do symbols or something for the cards for the types of Lores that work. I feel that is the only real flaw with the product.

Will there be one for Bestiary 2?

Will there be one for Bestiary 2?

Great Question... Will there be one?? :)

joela wrote:

Will there be one for Bestiary 2?

Great Question... Will there be one?? :)

We do have one in the works, yes. No timeline on when it will be done yet, though. :)

I would be a happy beta/play tester for ya hehe? Seriously though I am glad that it is being worked on and look forward to getting it. I love having most of your products and think that they can not come out fast enough.

As a GM who uses these cards almost every game, I eagerly await wait for you to release the Bestiary 2 monsters. My players LOVE using their knowledge skills to learn more about the creatures they are encountering.

I would STRONGLY recommend you listen to Dark_Mistress on her idea of adding an icon to each card to quickly identify which knowledge check to use. A holy symbol for K. Religion, a book or scroll for K. Arcana…. It took me a while to learn all the symbols in both bestiary books, but once I learned them I could remember a lot of information on a monster just by looking at the symbol. Hopefully the same can applied to these cards. :)

Two questions, one request and one comment:

Q1 - Do creatures such as dragons have separate entries for each age class and color?

Q2 - How are template creatures, such as ghosts, handled?

R1 - Could you post the card for trolls? My guys ran into them at last nights game and the wizard with an 8 or 9 in every knowledge skill (at 2nd level!) wanted to know about them. I have looked at the RPGNow sample, but those creatures are not used much in my games, where trolls are.

C1 - Add me to the list of folks requesting an icon on each card. I do not know if you can use the ones in the Bestiary, but I have finally learned what they mean.

-- david
Papa.DRB

Deanoth wrote:

joela wrote:

Will there be one for Bestiary 2?

Great Question... Will there be one?? :)

We do have one in the works, yes. No timeline on when it will be done yet, though. :)

Excellent!

Two questions, one request and one comment:

Q1 - Do creatures such as dragons have separate entries for each age class and color?

Dragons have a general "dragons" card, then each type has its own card.

Q2 - How are template creatures, such as ghosts, handled?

They are treated as any other creature in the Bestiary.

R1 - Could you post the card for trolls? My guys ran into them at last nights game and the wizard with an 8 or 9 in every knowledge skill (at 2nd level!) wanted to know about them. I have looked at the RPGNow sample, but those creatures are not used much in my games, where trolls are.

I might see if I can do something to help you out later today. :)

C1 - Add me to the list of folks requesting an icon on each card. I do not know if you can use the ones in the Bestiary, but I have finally learned what they mean.

-- david
Papa.DRB

We can't use the symbols from the Bestiary as that is part of Paizo's trade dress. We will be devising our own symbols that is tied to the type of Knowledge check that must be made for the creature on the card.

hunter1828 wrote:

Deanoth wrote:

joela wrote:

Will there be one for Bestiary 2?

Great Question... Will there be one?? :)

We do have one in the works, yes. No timeline on when it will be done yet, though. :)

Excellent!

In addition, we'll be releasing a set for the creatures in our recently released Tome of Monsters, too.

So any hint on when the bestiary 2 cards might be done? :)

So any hint on when the bestiary 2 cards might be done? :)

Sometime in June, if all goes as planned. We've got too much going on this month to finish it all up now.

No worries, was just wondering.

You know I LOVE that you are coming out with some new stuff.. but I have to say is there any way that we can get the monster knowledge PDF's for Pathfinder's Bestiary's 2&3 soon? We have been waiting for a long time with nothing in site. You have said soon but have not got any word as to when? :)

Thanks for your time in doing everything too!! :D