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Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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Scarab Sages

Where is the BEHOLDERS????? Are they behind 4th ed and are banned?

Scarab Sages

I'll assume the question is meant seriously...

Beholders are not open-game-license material. WotC never opened them up for general public use and thus Paizo can't use them. There are a few other creatures like this, notably mind-flayers..

Sovereign Court

They is not Open Content.


I think they are some of the creatures that aren't part of the open gaming licence (like Beholders and Githyanki), and so can't be used by companies outside of Wizards of the Coast.

Scarab Sages

Wicht wrote:

I'll assume the question is meant seriously...

Beholders are not open-game-license material. WotC never opened them up for general public use and thus Paizo can't use them. There are a few other creatures like this, notably mind-flayers..

i didnt even notice the mindflayer. not open content? that is crazey talk i thought all the books where open content...now i hate 4th ed that much more


yeah, and 4th edition has some great beholder builds.

Liberty's Edge

Correct. And since I see the question pop up more often, the more times it is out there the more helpful. So, here are the off-limits non-OGL monsters (list may not be complete):

Beholder
Cambion
Displacer Beast
Dracolich
Dragonspawn
Flameskull
Githyanki
Githzerai
Hook Horror
Kruthik
Kuo-Toa
Mind Flayer
Otyugh
Owlbear
Sahuagin
Shadar-Kai
Shifter
Slaad
Umber Hulk
Warforged
Yuan-Ti

Liberty's Edge

nothing in 4th edition is open content, that was third edition and 3.5.

Not everything in 3rd editon was open content. Anything related to any setting, including greyhawk, was not available, hence the wacky spell and item names. Certain monsters that WotC and D&D could realistically claim as having created were also not open content, such as beholders and mind flayers; Order of the Stick has fun with this (or maybe got a real C&D order, which is even funnier): http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0032.html

Contributor

They've been that way since 3e, actually, along with the carrion crawler, mind flayer, displacer beast, and a few others.

Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy

aku wrote:
i didnt even notice the mindflayer. not open content? that is crazey talk i thought all the books where open content...now i hate 4th ed that much more

It really has nothing to do with 4th edition, since the decision to withhold certain monsters as proprietary intellectual property was made when 3.5 and the OGL were still in their earliest stages. You'll note, though, that nowhere in the 3.5 core books did Wizards include the OGL statement or declare any content within the books to be open content. That declaration came with the release of the SRD, which was a completely separate document (which happened to not include several monsters, character creation rules, city creation statistics, and a few other elements which do appear in the printed version of the PHB, DMG, and MM).

Scarab Sages

Sean K Reynolds wrote:
They've been that way since 3e, actually, along with the carrion crawler, mind flayer, displacer beast, and a few others.

well i have every 3.5 book so really i dont need an update..i just like to see new stuff.. i hope to see more of the dungeon denizens and beastery annuals. P.S. the completes re worked like the warlock and dread necro

Liberty's Edge

DM Jeff wrote:

Correct. And since I see the question pop up more often, the more times it is out there the more helpful. So, here are the off-limits non-OGL monsters (list may not be complete):

Beholder
Cambion
Displacer Beast
Dracolich
Dragonspawn
Flameskull
Githyanki
Githzerai
Hook Horror
Kruthik
Kuo-Toa
Mind Flayer
Otyugh
Owlbear
Sahuagin
Shadar-Kai
Shifter
Slaad
Umber Hulk
Warforged
Yuan-Ti

These three from this list are in Pathfinder Bestiary

Otyugh
Owlbear
Sahuagin

Liberty's Edge

Sahuagin is a fun word to say. "Sah-who-a-gain".


aku wrote:
well i have every 3.5 book so really i dont need an update..i just like to see new stuff.. i hope to see more of the dungeon denizens and beastery annuals. P.S. the completes re worked like the warlock and dread necro

The Complete Series from WotC is also not Open Game Content. None of that will be reworked for Pathfinder. Nor is the Spell Compendium, Magic Item Compendium, etc. etc. Pretty much every WotC book except for the PHB, DMG, Monster Manual, and Unearthed Arcana are closed content. Of those four, not all parts are open.

Scarab Sages

erian_7 wrote:
aku wrote:
well i have every 3.5 book so really i dont need an update..i just like to see new stuff.. i hope to see more of the dungeon denizens and beastery annuals. P.S. the completes re worked like the warlock and dread necro
The Complete Series from WotC is also not Open Game Content. None of that will be reworked for Pathfinder. Nor is the Spell Compendium, Magic Item Compendium, etc. etc. Pretty much every WotC book except for the PHB, DMG, Monster Manual, and Unearthed Arcana are closed content. Of those four, not all parts are open.

sad face

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
erian_7 wrote:
aku wrote:
well i have every 3.5 book so really i dont need an update..i just like to see new stuff.. i hope to see more of the dungeon denizens and beastery annuals. P.S. the completes re worked like the warlock and dread necro
The Complete Series from WotC is also not Open Game Content. None of that will be reworked for Pathfinder. Nor is the Spell Compendium, Magic Item Compendium, etc. etc. Pretty much every WotC book except for the PHB, DMG, Monster Manual, and Unearthed Arcana are closed content. Of those four, not all parts are open.

The SRD includes elements of

PHB
DMG
MM
Epic Level Handbook
Expanded Psionics Handbook
Unearthed Arcana
Spell Compendium (domains)

RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32

Gorbacz wrote:

The SRD includes elements of

PHB
DMG
MM
Epic Level Handbook
Expanded Psionics Handbook
Unearthed Arcana
Spell Compendium (domains)

It also contains parts of Deities and Demigods, which I think is the original source of the domain material you're crediting to the Spell Compendium.


Ross Byers wrote:
Gorbacz wrote:

The SRD includes elements of

PHB
DMG
MM
Epic Level Handbook
Expanded Psionics Handbook
Unearthed Arcana
Spell Compendium (domains)

It also contains parts of Deities and Demigods, which I think is the original source of the domain material you're crediting to the Spell Compendium.

Likewise, no part of Unearthed Arcana is in the SRD. Many parts of Unearthed Arcana are Open Content (which is not the same thing as being in the SRD).

RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32

hogarth wrote:
Likewise, no part of Unearthed Arcana is in the SRD. Many parts of Unearthed Arcana are Open Content (which is not the same thing as being in the SRD).

Good catch, hogarth! Like many people, I forget that things on d20srd.org don't always actually come from the SRD.

Dark Archive

If it's not on this list it's not open content.


i thought pathfinder was backwards compatible? if you have all these books, just use the beholder from them. make your own fluff.

what is allowed by ogl: anything that comes out of your own head.


From what I've been told, Pathfinder is technically 3.5 compatible... but not really.


Dork Lord wrote:
From what I've been told, Pathfinder is technically 3.5 compatible... but not really.

It is actually compatible.

Roll up 4 Pathfinder RPG characters. Play them straight out of the PRPG book.

Now use any monster from the 3.5 handbook, adjusting nothing in their stats and abilities except for calculating their CMB/CMD.

Have the 4 Pathfinder RPG PCs fight the 3.5 monster.

A fight will happen, dice will be rolled, abilities (on both sides) will be used, and everyone will have fun.

Result: backward compatibility.

Now, if you're saying that it's not backward compatible because some of the non-open 3.5 content requires extra work to make compatible, that's a different story. We can't really take into account material we can't use, but are confident a 3.5 Warlock, for example, could be played mostly as is side-by-side with a PRPG Wizard.


I'm mostly talking about 3.5 feats in various sourcebooks as they relate to PF (my PF GM won't let us use any 3.5 feats), but I do see your basic point.


Joshua J. Frost wrote:

Roll up 4 Pathfinder RPG characters. Play them straight out of the PRPG book.

Now use any monster from the 3.5 handbook, adjusting nothing in their stats and abilities except for calculating their CMB/CMD.

Have the 4 Pathfinder RPG PCs fight the 3.5 monster.

A fight will happen ...

And the 3.5 Ed. monster will be mercilessly crushed by the PFRPG Power-creep.

Backwards compatible mechanically, but not always functionally.

IMHO,

Rez


Use two of the 3.5 Monsters instead of one? 3.5 was never known for having reliably accurate monster CRs anyways, so the fact that the listed CR doesn't match up isn't a new situation.


Caedwyr wrote:
Use two of the 3.5 Monsters instead of one? 3.5 was never known for having reliably accurate monster CRs anyways, so the fact that the listed CR doesn't match up isn't a new situation.

Boneclaws, anyone?


Rezdave wrote:
Joshua J. Frost wrote:

Roll up 4 Pathfinder RPG characters. Play them straight out of the PRPG book.

Now use any monster from the 3.5 handbook, adjusting nothing in their stats and abilities except for calculating their CMB/CMD.

Have the 4 Pathfinder RPG PCs fight the 3.5 monster.

A fight will happen ...

And the 3.5 Ed. monster will be mercilessly crushed by the PFRPG Power-creep.

Backwards compatible mechanically, but not always functionally.

IMHO,

Rez

It's not "power-creep", it's reasonable adjustment. The 3.5 monsters are notoriously miss-CRed, so in PF, some have been brought-down in power, and some have been boosted. That's why there is a new bestiary, with new write-ups. IF you use the old monsters, you'll have to use common sense when it comes to balance, but honestly, they pretty-much work right out of the box. A lot of mechanical issues from 3.5 were addressed in PF, so there will be some discrepancies with the way some things work, but Paizo's eye for balance is top-notch.

Sovereign Court

Rezdave wrote:

And the 3.5 Ed. monster will be mercilessly crushed by the PFRPG Power-creep.

Backwards compatible mechanically, but not always functionally.

IMHO,

Rez

So just drop the CRs a little...

Dark Archive

Isn't it funny how a simple question about how a persons favorite monster didn't make it into Pathfinder turns quickly into a rant aout how Pathfinder isn't really backwards compatable?

Dark Archive

Dork Lord wrote:
Caedwyr wrote:
Use two of the 3.5 Monsters instead of one? 3.5 was never known for having reliably accurate monster CRs anyways, so the fact that the listed CR doesn't match up isn't a new situation.
Boneclaws, anyone?

Dragons are a major culprait too. When I did my dragon conversions many of them had way too many HD for their CR, some of them had 10 or more HD higher.

Liberty's Edge

I've noticed that these forums do not believe in "on-topic", and things tend to turn into shouting matches rather quickly if the topic in question is not settled in a timely manner. Things are too polarized.

I've already abandoned my "party roles" thread, as it went off topic pretty quickly, got yanked back on topic for 5ish posts, then veered off to discuss Fighters being underpowered at the level cap. The discussion isn't "wrong", but it is rather polarized, and definately not on-topic.

The only way to 'fix' it would be to aggressively redefine the current culture of the forums; it's just easier to bring the topic up again later.

Besides, this thread is called "WTF"; what do you expect an on-topic discussion to look like?


Rezdave wrote:
Joshua J. Frost wrote:

Roll up 4 Pathfinder RPG characters. Play them straight out of the PRPG book.

Now use any monster from the 3.5 handbook, adjusting nothing in their stats and abilities except for calculating their CMB/CMD.

Have the 4 Pathfinder RPG PCs fight the 3.5 monster.

A fight will happen ...

And the 3.5 Ed. monster will be mercilessly crushed by the PFRPG Power-creep.

Backwards compatible mechanically, but not always functionally.

IMHO,

Rez

Mechanically, yes. Functionally? Buy a Bestiary.


BobChuck wrote:
...what do you expect an on-topic discussion to look like?

This.

But, then again, I have a twisted imagination.

Dark Archive

Joshua J. Frost wrote:
BobChuck wrote:
...what do you expect an on-topic discussion to look like?

This.

But, then again, I have a twisted imagination.

What is that from? It reminds me of Fallout 3.


Since the OP was *ahem* very vocal about his unhappiness with the monsters missing, what are the chances of paizo doing some sort of "pay to play" with those monsters?

I know it is probably a question that will get me attacked to no end, but I was just curious.


The One Who Makes You Angry wrote:

Since the OP was *ahem* very vocal about his unhappiness with the monsters missing, what are the chances of paizo doing some sort of "pay to play" with those monsters?

I know it is probably a question that will get me attacked to no end, but I was just curious.

It can't be done by Paizo... it's intellectual property... Wizards owns said creatures and isn't letting anyone else have them for gaming purposes... so it doesn't matter what Paizo might want to do, they can't touch them at all.

RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32

I removed an insulting post.


Well Opener just convert the squid heads and use them in your game problem solved...Its kind of like having an illicit affair


Abraham spalding wrote:
The One Who Makes You Angry wrote:

Since the OP was *ahem* very vocal about his unhappiness with the monsters missing, what are the chances of paizo doing some sort of "pay to play" with those monsters?

I know it is probably a question that will get me attacked to no end, but I was just curious.

It can't be done by Paizo... it's intellectual property... Wizards owns said creatures and isn't letting anyone else have them for gaming purposes... so it doesn't matter what Paizo might want to do, they can't touch them at all.

Thats why I was wondering about some sort of "pay to play". Now I know that is not realistically what paizo wants to do (nor do I want them to do it!), but I was just curious if that was possible.

I don't know the ins and outs of the OGL all that well.

Dark Archive

Joshua J. Frost wrote:
BobChuck wrote:
...what do you expect an on-topic discussion to look like?

This.

But, then again, I have a twisted imagination.

I didn't realize the health care debate had gotten that bad. :)

Dark Archive

The One Who Makes You Angry wrote:

Thats why I was wondering about some sort of "pay to play". Now I know that is not realistically what paizo wants to do (nor do I want them to do it!), but I was just curious if that was possible.

I don't know the ins and outs of the OGL all that well.

Sure, it's theoretically possible for Paizo to obtain a license to use monsters that aren't open content. But in order for them to obtain one, WotC would have to be willing to offer it, and Paizo would have to want to seek it.


Joshua J. Frost wrote:
BobChuck wrote:
...what do you expect an on-topic discussion to look like?

This.

But, then again, I have a twisted imagination.

Hey, new background! Thanks.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

PulpCruciFiction wrote:
...WotC would have to be willing to offer it, and Paizo would have to want to seek it.

Neither of which is likely to happen any time soon.


Once Paizo is done updating the content we all know and love, they'll be able to move in new directions like you're seeing with the Advanced Player's Guide. True, you won't be seeing a 'beholder' or 'dracolich' any time soon, but you can't copywrite the basic ideas behind a laser-spitting eyeball or an undead dragon. Otherwise, I'm looking forward to seeing what new party-mashers Paizo can come up with that can become the new world's most popular role playing game monsters.


Paizo's already remade some of WotC's non-OGL creatures in their own way. WotC's Bullywugs, for example, became Paizo's Boggards. I doubt you'll ever see an official Paizo recreation of the Beholder simply because it's such a strange corner-case creature, but stuff like Dracoliches are almost certain to be done in Paizo fashion at some point.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

The funny thing is that while Beholders are WotC IP, their aquatic variant - Eye of the Deep - is open content thanks to Tome of Horrors.

Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy

Gorbacz wrote:
The funny thing is that while Beholders are WotC IP, their aquatic variant - Eye of the Deep - is open content thanks to Tome of Horrors.

Just because something's open content doesn't mean Paizo will ever use it though. While they could use an eye of the deep or a slaad lord, once they start including partial elements, they're going to get even more fans crying on the boards that their favorite closed content monster isn't included. As long as there are no floating eyes (or swimming eyes, or whatever) in Golarion or the Pathfinder RPG, then it's easier to say "those just aren't part of our game."

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
yoda8myhead wrote:
Gorbacz wrote:
The funny thing is that while Beholders are WotC IP, their aquatic variant - Eye of the Deep - is open content thanks to Tome of Horrors.
Just because something's open content doesn't mean Paizo will ever use it though. While they could use an eye of the deep or a slaad lord, once they start including partial elements, they're going to get even more fans crying on the boards that their favorite closed content monster isn't included. As long as there are no floating eyes (or swimming eyes, or whatever) in Golarion or the Pathfinder RPG, then it's easier to say "those just aren't part of our game."

Dear Yoda, you might want to check the 3rd part of Legacy of Fire. An Eye of the Deep is there, ready to go "zam-zam" with it's eye rays.

Also, Neothelids vs. Illithids, same story.

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