Cenobite451's page

I don't understand why people appear to be getting annoyed over this. It's really very simple. As I said, the ecology is, ultimately, irretrievably borked. It cannot exist as written without massive applications of handwavium and/or Goldbergian logic constructs that look as though they were imagined by the spawn of M.C. Escher and Nyarlathotep.

It's the natural and inevitable consequence of a setting which basically tries to incorporate every damn thing, ever. Something's gotta give. And setting integrity is a surprisingly fragile thing.

(Apropos of nothing, I just learned that spellcheck's best guess when confronted with "Nyarlathotep" is "radiotelephone". I find that oddly hilarious. XD)

I think, at the end of the day, we must simply accept that Golarion's ecology (and that of most other D&D-like settings) is deeply and irretrievably broken, and try not to think too much about it.

But if it helps, one could assume that (at least for the purposes of most undead) there are a highly specific and esoteric set of conditions not directly touched on in the source material that are required for their spontaneous creation; the (for example) rape and murder requirement to become a guecubu is simply the most obvious.

If such handwaving fails to satisfy... I'd say you're up a bit of a creek; it may be time to design your own setting.

(Or visit the Disc. Or the Hyborian Age. Possibly Athas. There are options; they're just few, far between, and tend to have not quite so many dragons.)

Just finished skimming through my recently purchased PDF copy. Largely pretty great; I particularly loved the symbiote feats, and the Mocking could fit into just about any campaign.

I did notice a couple of errors: columns two and three of page 21 managed to get transposed somehow, and Wormwood appears at a glance to be missing a CR. (It's there - 20 - but the art covered it up; I had to highlight the text to find it.)

I was mildly disappointed by the Star Beasts, actually. They just don't feel nearly as impressive as it seems like they should; only Wormwood even approaches the sheer terror factor of a (comparatively) common great wyrm. I understand the design intent - clearly the star beasts are meant to provide opponents for a range of campaign levels. Even so, the decision to do it that way robs them of the epic feel I was hoping for.

All that said, it's still a pretty great book. Nice layout and pretty pictures go a long way towards making an enjoyable read in my book, and there's a fair amount of utility to be had here as well.

So, as a first impression: 4/5.