cheshirescott's page

Pretty cool monster. Not too bothered by the "wyrm" descriptor despite it not being a dragon. I also like the phonetic play on the name. :)

cheshirescott wrote:

Mothman- The implication of hive mind is found all throughout the text. The hive submits completely to the queen's telepathic will. The hive loses all direction and motivation should the current queen die before the new one is hatched. The queen's direct involvement in combat boosts all non-physical ability scores for that specific swarm because she can focus. Hive mind.

If this monster had ‘hive mind’ or ‘telepathic’ or something as a special ability or special quality some of these questions might be answered, but it doesn’t and they are not. I can’t think of any Pathfinder monsters that have a hive mind off the top of my head, so I can’t easily check, but I’m pretty sure that in 3.5 / PF creatures with a hive mind have it listed as a special quality.

I’m really not trying to pile on this submission but “the implication ... is found all throughout” is not really good enough for a Superstar entry. By all means defend an entry on its merits (of which there are several), but trying to justify the faults doesn’t do the author or the...

That's a totally valid point. I tend to play rather than run, so I didn't even consider the need to list it as a special ability. I'm kind of hoping now that it simply was an oversight or a result of word limitations because I really like the bugs.

Set- Yeah, there's fire resistance, but it's only 5 which, if I had to guess, is aimed at Alchemist Fire. Let's be honest... a party taking on a CR 7 creature ought to have more than just a couple vials of Alchemist Fire in the arsenal. There ought to be somebody capable of casting 3rd level arcane spells in the group by now.

Saint Trickery- The boiling makes sense to me because it likens the creature to another insect, the bombardier beetle.

Mothman- The implication of hive mind is found all throughout the text. The hive submits completely to the queen's telepathic will. The hive loses all direction and motivation should the current queen die before the new one is hatched. The queen's direct involvement in combat boosts all non-physical ability scores for that specific swarm because she can focus. Hive mind.

Andrew (I know you can't answer yet, but I'm still throwing this out there)- One of the things I'd like to see is how big a colony/hive can be. "A mile in any direction" covers a lot of ground so it'd be nice to have an idea of how often you could throw one of these swarms at a party.

One of the things I really like, as Saint Trickery notes, is the crazy mixture of many different types of insects. All the little traits that, in their individual breeds, would be a pretty easy (almost negligible) combat, make for a nasty rumble when combined into one creature with a mind for tactics and some spell casting ability. Again, it's CR 7, so it shouldn't be easy by any stretch. More than one swarm of these at a time, though... that's an ugly thought.

I'm also a fan of the creepy factor. A horde of enormous bugs closing in and TALKING? Ew. Just ew. As a horror writer, I dig it.

One of the things that strike me about this submission isn't the organization's end game, it's the potential subtleties of the organization; the kind of variation you can get based on the region in which the League Hall is based and the director of said League Hall. The insurance angle alone intrigues me because you could get a League House that's basically State Farm in appearance and approach or you could get a mob style protection racket. Possibly both if the director is crafty enough. I kind of wish my old merchant PC could have interacted with an org like this.

Mah voet. U haz it.

I dropped my subscription at the end of Kingmaker. I wanted to explain why:

I would like more "Adventure Path" in my adventure paths. I like the forward from the editor, but I'd rather see 1 page than 2 pages. I don't like the 6 pages of fiction, and I don't like the 6+ pages of gazeteer style information (information about gods or lands), and I am not terribly fond of the 2-3 pages of advertising.

If you scrapped the gazeteer stuff and the fiction, I would be very happy and feel that I was getting my moneys worth... as it is, I sort of feel like 20% of my purchase is completely wasted.

Where I am coming from: I purchased the entire 2nd darkness path at my FLGS, and I purchased Kingmaker via subscription. I had hoped that during the time between 2nd Darkness and Kingmaker that the format may have changed a bit to cut down on the gazeteer and fiction, but sadly it was not the case.

I know some people really like the fiction and gazeteer style substance, but those people are also probably subscribing to other lines of your products... it seems out of place in an adventure path to have pure world-building information.

So I assume, then, that you also promptly returned every DVD or Blue Ray you've ever purchased upon learning that the subtitles included languages you don't speak? "Oh noes! Trailers and Cantonese! 20% of the dollars I spent on this movie have been wasted!" No, of course you didn't. Because you paid for the main content, the subtitles are an extra and the ads keep costs down. You may not want them, but there they are. If you'd be content to pay the same price for just the AP, then why not suck it up and live with the 10 extra pages?