Alex Smith 908's page

All of this book's character options seem to be designed to punish people for wanting to be cool. Oozemorphs in particular just punishes you for wanting to play an ooze and forces you to work to get back to human baseline average and doesn't give you any of the normal ooze benefits.

Actually read this just recently, and wow this is bad. Like really really bad. Like someone tried to just write up their hexcrawl as a setting bad. Then you add on another level of creepy be including huge amounts of overly specific and completely uninteresting torture and rape. Why do the dark gods care that the girl you sacrificed to them was of specific race and stabbed exactly 47 times on the sixth hour of the solstice? We never get an answer because that makes the dark gods "inscrutable" and "beyond mortal comprehension", which is layman's terms for "Hell if I know, just wanted to describe a bunch of rape over and over again".

Even if you can get past the creepy 12 year old shock violence the rest of the game still isn't good. The world described in excruciating detail but none of those details are interesting. Every single hex is individually described on its massive map and nearly all of them are simply formatted as such: X people of Y race live here and are led by a level Z chief who is named something out of a bad metal band name generator. This includes virtually nothing about actual culture, NPCs besides local strongmen, or anything that would actually get the PCs to go adventuring. If you are very very lucky there will be a monster lair in the hex with a half-filled out stat block. To make matters worse most of the monsters are randomly generated because of the games insistence that most monsters are spawn of Shub-Niggurath which for some reason means they are generated off of a big old chart. This means that in practice what are supposed to be infinitely varied monstrosities are samey blobs, shapes, or animal hybrids.

Something of a minor quibble is that the city of Carcosa itself doesn't even have anything specific of interest and is barely more detailed than the other hexes. Exploring Carcosa as it was hinted at in the King in Yellow or any subsequent mythos related books could have been a pretty good effort, but apparently that was way too much time spent not talking about rape and random numbers for screwing over your players.

In short don't buy this. You can simulate whatever oldschool fun you'd get by using any of numerous online hexcrawl generators. Except those will be cheaper and not make people think you're a creep for using them.

This is the single most useful third party book available to Pathfinder GMs. Its templates act as a resource multiplier, increasing the value and variety of every other monster book you own. Each of the templates opens up new locations and ways old monsters can challenge your players. Thus an aboleth isn't restricted to only being encountered in aquatic adventures, a giant mantis can be modified as a swamp dweller, and an army of clockworks can be led by a true mechanical colossus above even the clockwork behemoths.

Even if you don't have the time to apply templates to existing monsters the sample creatures are universally interesting and usable as they are. In fact all the examples I gave earlier are monsters present in the book itself. Over one hundred of these creatures is beautifully illustrated in detail easily rivaling that of Paizo products.

In short buy this book, either in hardback or the wonderfully hyperlinked pdf version.

Mythic Monsters Fairy Tale Creatures opens with 8 normal spells that feel oddly fitting, as though they were missing from the core rulebook and only now put back into the game as intended. They are fey equivelents of shadow walk, polymorph, and planar calling. Additionally those spells have mythic versions and mythic version of a few other fairy tale related spells are presented.

After the spells we get to our first mosnster the mythic banshee. Right away we see that it's charisma has been increased to both make its special abilities more lethal and radically increase its hit points. The increased durability is very important given the high level combat its CR puts it in. Additionally it has shout as an at will spell-like ability which gives some fun utility to the banshee and allows it to harm inanimate objects which was all but impossible for non-mythic banshees. In the more unique abilities the mythic banshee receieves an aura that surpreses fear immunity and gives a penalty to saves versus fear effects which make the last dispelling part of the banshee's terror ability a lot less important but doesn't entirely negate its usefulness. Additionally they have an aura that affets those in it with crushing despair, a ghostly dullahan driven coach, and the ability to mix sonic and negative energy damage in their wails. For the most part other banshee abilities are left untouched from their non-mythic version. Overall these upgrades make the mythic banshee much more of an event boss than normal banshees. It would be exceedingly difficult to run more than on at a time but that's okay because a mythic banshee should be the main focus of any fight its in or at least an important solo support for the main enemy.

Next is the bogeyman. Aside from standard stat adjustments they gain the see-in-darkness ability as well as hungry darkness and deeper darkness as spell like abilities. These nicely compliment eachother to help keep bogeymen as unseen foes until confronted my magical light. Their deepest fear ability has been renamed deepest dread. It no longer gives 24 hour immunity on a successful save, got a slight bump in save DC, and allows the bogeyman to spend mythic power to bypass fear immunity. Their claws now consider all those suffering from fear effects to be flat-footed, making sneak attacks easier, and cause fear effects to worsened on a critical hit. Lastly Terrible Rejuvenation now allows bogeymen to ressurect after several days so long as someone was suffering a fear effect in their aura at time of death. Those suffering from the fear effect are plagued by nightmares while the bogeyman rejuvinates. I really enjoy the bogeyman as a monster and especially enjoy the fact that it is able to function effectively entirely around a darkness and fear themed ability set. The mythic upgrade significantly helps to keeep fear as a credible threat even into higher levels and makes permanently dealing with them exceptionally difficult.

Faerie dragons as per normal low level mythic creatures don't have a lot added to them. Their main addition in euphoria being added to their bite attack. It essentially operates as a bard's fascinate on creature bitten including the ability to give them suggestions. This adds to their overall trickster archtype and helps set up mysteries or puzzles involving a faerie dragon manipulating other creatures.

The bandersnatch is one of my favorite creatures in Pathfinder period and the mythic version does the apex fey realm hunter justice. Most of its new abilities are focused on increasing its ability to survive in high level combat. The mythic frumious bandersnatch gains dual initiative, feral savagery, around one hundred hit points and a general small upward number improvements. Additionally its tail attack is significantly more deadly as its damage has been multiplied and its pain now causes the target to become staggered in addition to being sickened. Probably its most interesting ability is hard to kill which revives a slain bandersnatch through breath of life and an increased fast healing so long as it has a mythic power to spend. This results in a monster that by itself is exceedingly difficult to kill, but if paired with a more spellcaster oriented fey will be a boss fight that players never forget. The only real disappointment is that feral savagery and frumious overlap a lot and the bandersnatch doesn't gain much by having both of them. Even so that is one small complaint on an otherwise excellent monster.

The mythic green hag is for the most part unchanged in the stat department aside from a few small buffs here and there. Her main bonsues come in the form of abilities focused on her most traditional of fairy tale past times, eating people. She can eat helpless or dying creatures to bolster herself and strike fear into her enemies. Additionally she can track tasty morsels exceptionally well, even across water ways and into buildings. These abilities are for the most part utility and certainly help for story telling but might not make up for the increase in her CR.

The mythic jabberwock has numerous abilities retooled and added. First is their barble which goes from confusion to mythic confusion and the sonic blast version goes from a line to a cone. Its eye rays can overcome non-mythic fire resistance. Additionally it can skin foes alive after successfully grappling them, which is all but a death sentence unless they receive regeneration. Manxome foes is akin to frightful presence but instead staggers and sickens foes. It also gains a slew of spell-like abilities relating to fire and air as well as a tail sweep, both of which make it feel more like one of the traditional dragons. Overall the design of the mythic jabberwock serves well for a massive boss monster, but suffers from how fragile its action economy is. Without some way to full attack and more or have dual initiative the mythic jabberwock will quickly be out manuevered by all but the most sluggish parties. Its probably best to use them with a large number of minions or give them the dual initiative ability.

The jubjub bird gains fortification, dual initiative, and its adaptive defense now grants immuntiy rather than resistance. Additionally it can spend a mythic power to gain improved versions of pounce, whirlwind attack, or lunge. The jubjub bird feels like a monster designed to be best fought by ranged combatants. Its defensive abilities are mostly against energy damage and its abilities allow for a lot of hit and run without allowing retaliation. As a result it could be an effective and frustrating foe against a traditional party, but against archers desperately needs to use terrain for cover. It would probably shine as a pack encounter at high levels in a forested region. Some place that multiple jubjub birds can perform hit and run attacks while duckin behind trees.

The mythic leprechaun has a surprising number of added abilities for a creature so low CR. It is able to apply spell-like abilities to individuals it is bluffing without them noticing includin modify memory. Additionally its club can daze and knock enemies prone on a critical hit. Mythic leprechaun are very useful in a trickster NPC role but are also capable of defending themselves against PCs once the gig is up.

The mythic pixie gains the ability to give other creatures flight from its dust ala tinekr belle, as well as the ability to create an exploding decoy. Like the normal pixie the mythic pixies abilities seem most suited for a supporting fighter ratehr than an encounter by itself.

The mythic redcap is a deadly if fragile melee monster for its CR. All of its attacks have gained the bleed ability, and it gains an extra attack when harming bleeding creatures. Additionally it gains bonuses against those that try to exploit typical redcap weakness. For instance it gains a bonus and increase attacks of oppertunity against those that try to disarm its cap or scythe, and it enters a rage if it succeeds its save versus its irreligious weakness. I'm overall not sure if I like the redcap's new mythic abilities. While I understand the need to keep weaknesses from being crippling it's easy to go to far the other way and punish players for fighting intelligently. I'll have to play a few more games with it to be sure, but overall the idea seems to be in the right place. Anti-redcap tactics are high risk high reward.

The mythic unicorns new abilities are for the most part simply increasing its connection to purity. Its circle of protection from evil now provides the mythic protection from evil to all creatures within and evil creatures who do enter are sickened. Additionally all cure spells used on the livin by the unicorn are maxmized and can have paladin mercies applied to them. The mythic unicorn feels more like a supportive unit, cohort, or event NPC than something that would actually get into combat with any but the most evil of PCs. Even so tis mythic stats are helpful as a sort of good aligned "lord of the forest" character.

Mythic Will o wisps have a much trickier combat setup than their non-mythic counterparts. Their electricity can daze enemies and cause them to become shaken. They now have light-based spell-like abilities and their feed on fear ability now works on all emotions. That last change makes it much easier to envision a non-evil will o wisp and helps to give them more goals than simply killing all nearby creatures. Overall the changes are very good and help make a will o wisp tht can more easily aid other fairy tale creatures as a member of their population.

Last is the new monster the Boojum Snark. It is always a welcome sight to see more Lewis Carroll creatures making their way into Pathfinder. All of its habits and abilities from the original story "The Hunting of the Snark" are worked in either mechanically, as its vanishing gaze and fondness for bathing machines, or in its flavor text. The only real disappointment I have with it is by stating that it the least powerful Tane the book implies that non-boojum snarks don't exist. This would be a fine twist on the snark hunt, but the belief in less dangerous snarks is never mentioned or addressed. Still an excellent monster that is quite useless for random encounters or an organized hunt.

Overall this book is exceptionally useful. It covers a group of often neglected but classic creatures, and is well worth your purchase.

All of the standard giants and merrow were excellent and possessing in nifty special abilities that add a lot to encounters. The giants all share a unified theme of battefield control. The landscape and battlefield is on their side, not the players. Meanwhile the merrow are exceptional at boarding ships to get the juicy land-dwellers within, to help differentiate them from standard trolls. The new angurboda monster especially shows a lot of creativity in making a Grendel's mother type creature.

The only real downside to the book are the non-merrow trolls: rock, moss, and jotund. They all seem to just have a small number of generic mythic abilities added along with the primal vigor from normal mythic trolls. I would have liked to see more abilities added to them, specially things taken from Scandinavian folklore.