Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Bestiary 3 (OGL)

Terra cotta soldiers? [Casts Detect Erik Mona] Did Erik reprise his entry from Jade Dragons & Hungry Ghosts or are these a whole new version by a different designer? Enquiring minds and all the crap.

I'm not sure I wrote the terra cotta warriors in Jade Dragons & Hungry Ghosts (though the poop monster and the one with the prehensile intestines were mine!).

In any event, I didn't design anything in Bestiary 3.

Gururamalamaswami wrote:

Terra cotta soldiers? [Casts Detect Erik Mona] Did Erik reprise his entry from Jade Dragons & Hungry Ghosts or are these a whole new version by a different designer? Enquiring minds and all the crap.

I'm not sure I wrote the terra cotta warriors in Jade Dragons & Hungry Ghosts (though the poop monster and the one with the prehensile intestines were mine!).

In any event, I didn't design anything in Bestiary 3.

Quickly rereads...oops! That was Wolfgang Baur. Sorry! Poop monster? Ahh...kurote. Gross. What is wrong with those people? At least there's no intrusive tentacles.

Well here's nominating the fukuranbou (say that 10 times fast) and the kurote for Bestiary 4! Let not the poop monster and the prehensile intestines be left behind!

Ziz? What bible is that from? I've read about Behemoth and Leviathan in Job. Never heard of Ziz. Is that apocryphal?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziz - I hadn't heard of it either, but apparently it was the aerial equivalent to Behemoth or Leviathan.

Sincubus wrote:

I agree its appearance is boring, ugly and pathetic, but its special ability to animate objects and create living objects is unique and awesome.

That's exactly the reason we HAVEN'T updated this monster yet, frankly. If we did, it would need to have its ability to animate objects significantly nerfed. A CR 5 or thereabounts monster should not have the ability to create a CR 9 encounter at will once per round.

I always thought CR5 was too low for Ravid, making it into a CR8,9 or 10 creature would be much better.

"Available tomorrow" it says for pdfs. Does that mean midnight? Are your servers ready for the deluge?

"Available tomorrow" it says for pdfs. Does that mean midnight? Are your servers ready for the deluge?

It means 12:01 am on Wednesday December 21st. :)

Groovy. See you then.

did they get in the nightgaunt of flying polyp that missed out on carrion crown?

The bhole (aka dhole) was also in that group that missed out on Carrion Crown. They're not in Bestiary 3, but we do have some plans for them to see print next year nonetheless... it'll take a bit, though.

I'm assuming the Behemoth's are the kaiju that they were going to have in the bestiary? If so, then I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on the book.

Originally, behemoths AND kaiju were scheduled to be in Bestiary 3. When we started working on the kaiju template, though, I came to the decision that a template isn't a great way to handle kaiju—I did a similar thing back in the 3.5 days for Dragon, and that template ended up being several pages long and STILL didn't cover everything I wanted it to.

As a result, my take on kaiju is that they should NOT be templates. Like dire animals, kaiju should be hand-built as a type of monster (likely magical beasts), which lets us get into the personalities and histories and other flavorful stuff about them in ways that a template would not allow.

Kaiju, as a result, are not in Bestiary 3. I have plans for them, but not plans I can say much more about quite yet.

Hey James, something I've noticed Frog God doing lately in the Slumbering Tsar series is dipping into the three Creature Collection books by Swords & Sorcery, which are OGL. Has Paizo thought about dipping into these books the same way they've been using the Tome of Horrors and the Book of Fiends?

Because no OGL monster should be left behind.

Hey James, something I've noticed Frog God doing lately in the Slumbering Tsar series is dipping into the three Creature Collection books by Swords & Sorcery, which are OGL. Has Paizo thought about dipping into these books the same way they've been using the Tome of Horrors and the Book of Fiends?

Because no OGL monster should be left behind.

The Creature Colleciton books have a few strikes against them, alas—they're 3.0 (as far as I know) which makes it an extra step of complexity to use them... but the primary reason we've never used the monsters from Swords & Sorcery's books is that the monsters aren't open ENOUGH. Specifically, none of the names of any of the monsters in the Creature Collections are open content—they specifically indicate that the only open content in the book is the raw stats, running from the Size/Type entry just UNDER the monster's name to the start of the monster's Description, and then all of the combat rules.

Some folks call this crippled content. It's certainly been enough to prevent me from using monsters from the Creature Collection in Paizo products, because if I can't cite the monster's name... there's really no point to using the monster. I'll just use a similar monster from the vast resources we have from Paizo, Green Ronin, Necromancer/Frog God, and the like. Or I'll just make up a new monster. Making your monster's name not open content is, to me, a deal-breaker.

Interesting...wonder how Frog God is getting away with it then. They are even including proper names like Gaurak Troll. Weird. Fair enough. That's too bad though because there are a lot of cool monsters in those books (the various hags, savant hydras, et al).

Creature Collection Revised and Creature Collection III were 3.5.

I imagine that with the various Pathfinder AP entries and other stuff you have plenty of monsters for the next Bestiary anyway.

Interesting...wonder how Frog God is getting away with it then. They are even including proper names like Gaurak Troll. Weird. Fair enough. That's too bad though because there are a lot of cool monsters in those books (the various hags, savant hydras, et al).

Creature Collection Revised and Creature Collection III were 3.5.

I imagine that with the various Pathfinder AP entries and other stuff you have plenty of monsters for the next Bestiary anyway.

FGG has a special relationship with the Creature Collections through Necromancer Games (Bill's prior company) which originally helped produce the Creature Collections. So that has given us some leeway that is not otherwise extant for everyone. There has been debate in FGG about whether to keep the non-OGL Monster Manual monsters in Rappan Athuk (beholders, mind flayers, and such) since it was a NG product and NG had special permission from WotC to do so, but ulimately we opted to not go that direction just to avoid any potential entanglements.

It is unfortunate about the weird "names being non-OGL" thing for the CC books, so we'll try to get them as much exposure as possible on behalf of the old books through some FGG releases, but unless White Wolf rescinds that policy somehow, I think James is right.

Thanks guys for the quick answers. That's a real bummer. Wonder if White Wolf realize they are sitting on a potential trove? Seriously, a Pathfinder-compatitible Creature Collection would do at least as well as the Tome of Horrors.

Thanks guys for the quick answers. That's a real bummer. Wonder if White Wolf realize they are sitting on a potential trove? Seriously, a Pathfinder-compatitible Creature Collection would do at least as well as the Tome of Horrors.

White Wolf has been severely crippled lately. They were bought by CCP Games a few years back with the intent of creating an MMO based on Vampire (or maybe all of WoD, not sure). CCP has since run into problems with their main cash cow, Eve Online, and I don't think the new World of Darkness turned out as well as they had planned (at least not commercially). WW nowadays almost only does PDFs, with the option of going to print if the PDFs become successful enough. For example, the latest printed book they did for Exalted was Return of the Scarlet Empress, from August 2010. Since then, they've released one Storyteller Adventure System module for Exalted (a weird kind of adventure format), plus PDFs of The Broken-Winged Crane and Compass of Celestial Directions: Autochthonia - all three are available as Print-on-Demand books from DrivethruRPG, but you won't find either one in your FLGS.

So re-releasing the Creature Collections for Pathfinder is probably pretty far down their list of priorities at the moment.

Originally, behemoths AND kaiju were scheduled to be in Bestiary 3. When we started working on the kaiju template, though, I came to the decision that a template isn't a great way to handle kaiju—I did a similar thing back in the 3.5 days for Dragon, and that template ended up being several pages long and STILL didn't cover everything I wanted it to.

As a result, my take on kaiju is that they should NOT be templates. Like dire animals, kaiju should be hand-built as a type of monster (likely magical beasts), which lets us get into the personalities and histories and other flavorful stuff about them in ways that a template would not allow.

Kaiju, as a result, are not in Bestiary 3. I have plans for them, but not plans I can say much more about quite yet.

As a kaiju fan, and particularly a fan of Godzilla, thank you :) I'm hoping we'll see a Monster Island sort of book with a dozen monsters akin to those we've seen in Toho's filmography.

Now I just hope that my B3 gets here by tomorrow ...

Gururamalamaswami wrote:

"Available tomorrow" it says for pdfs. Does that mean midnight? Are your servers ready for the deluge?

It means 12:01 am on Wednesday December 21st. :)

:(

I'll keep refreshing, like an obedient drone.

Gururamalamaswami wrote:

"Available tomorrow" it says for pdfs. Does that mean midnight? Are your servers ready for the deluge?

It means 12:01 am on Wednesday December 21st. :)

Eh...12:01 AM what time zone? It's 12:06 here and no pdf.

Eastern. Virginia. Oh well. Maybe in the morning.

Liz Courts wrote:

Gururamalamaswami wrote:

"Available tomorrow" it says for pdfs. Does that mean midnight? Are your servers ready for the deluge?

It means 12:01 am on Wednesday December 21st. :)

Eh...12:01 AM what time zone? It's 12:06 here and no pdf.

I'd be willing to bet Pacific, since Paizo is in Seattle, so you got 3 more hours to wait. I'm waiting until I get Christmas money to buy, so I have quite a bit longer.

I'm assuming Pacific time zone. The BEST time zone!

Damn.

I'm assuming Pacific time zone. The BEST time zone!

The west coast is pretty great, but the product description does say "PDF available today US/Eastern" So, I got my hopes up and stayed up way too late, live and learn. :)

I'm hoping we'll see a Monster Island sort of book with a dozen monsters akin to those we've seen in Toho's filmography.

Mmmmmm. Monster Island Revisited. I like that.

AAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!

Sorry. The waiting is killing me. I'm in the right time zone and still have a couple hours or so. Bleh.

The mail came! Woohoo!

Okay... looking at the reimagined demodands, and their goals and methodology, am I the only one reminded strongly of the various Demon Lords from Dragon Quest? :)

2 hours and it get out in EU

For those waiting... Subscribe. Had both my PDF and my hard copy last week.

Come on, you know you want to...

How much is it to subscribe?

Soon now....

...and GOT IT!!!! Finally! Nerdgasm! Goodnight! [Rushes off to a sleepless night of reading.]

Gururamalamaswami wrote:

Interesting...wonder how Frog God is getting away with it then. They are even including proper names like Gaurak Troll. Weird. Fair enough. That's too bad though because there are a lot of cool monsters in those books (the various hags, savant hydras, et al).

Creature Collection Revised and Creature Collection III were 3.5.

I imagine that with the various Pathfinder AP entries and other stuff you have plenty of monsters for the next Bestiary anyway.

FGG has a special relationship with the Creature Collections through Necromancer Games (Bill's prior company) which originally helped produce the Creature Collections. So that has given us some leeway that is not otherwise extant for everyone. There has been debate in FGG about whether to keep the non-OGL Monster Manual monsters in Rappan Athuk (beholders, mind flayers, and such) since it was a NG product and NG had special permission from WotC to do so, but ulimately we opted to not go that direction just to avoid any potential entanglements.

It is unfortunate about the weird "names being non-OGL" thing for the CC books, so we'll try to get them as much exposure as possible on behalf of the old books through some FGG releases, but unless White Wolf rescinds that policy somehow, I think James is right.

Hi Greg sorry in advance for being off topic but I couldn't find a direct contact. I am playing "Hateful Legacy" but I'd like to stick to official pathfinder or pathfinder licensed material, so I won't use the Angel of Decay write up. Do you have ideas how to replace it? Maybe some monster from Tomb of Horrors or one of the Bestiaries?

KUCHRIMA are about diseases, but I rather saw them with rotting abilities...

Maybe you can change some stats on the Kuchrima and turn it into a rotting-based horror?

How much is it to subscribe?

It just costs the cost of the book to subscribe when it is released.

So you might want to track your subscription to make sure you have enough money in your account when a book is released :)

I'm not sure I wrote the terra cotta warriors in Jade Dragons & Hungry Ghosts (though the poop monster and the one with the prehensile intestines were mine!).

In any event, I didn't design anything in Bestiary 3.

Maybe it speaks volumes on my maturity, but I'd be giggling non-stop at my fortune if my day job was designing a poop monster. That is pretty much the definition of "win".

Hi Greg sorry in advance for being off topic but I couldn't find a direct contact. I am playing "Hateful Legacy" but I'd like to stick to official pathfinder or pathfinder licensed material, so I won't use the Angel of Decay write up. Do you have ideas how to replace it? Maybe some monster from Tomb of Horrors or one of the Bestiaries?

Wow, Hateful Legacy! That's awesome, Beek. Honestly I don't have any suggestions off the top of my head. Those Libris Mortis monsters were fairly unique, so there hasn't been a lot of crossover with them. Maybe some sort of demon or daemon specializing in disease? Alternately, though it's flavor is a little different, the black jinn from LoF (PF #23) might work in a pinch. If I think of something else, I'll post it. I hope you enjoy the adventure!

Beek Gwenders of Croodle wrote:

Hi Greg sorry in advance for being off topic but I couldn't find a direct contact. I am playing "Hateful Legacy" but I'd like to stick to official pathfinder or pathfinder licensed material, so I won't use the Angel of Decay write up. Do you have ideas how to replace it? Maybe some monster from Tomb of Horrors or one of the Bestiaries?

Wow, Hateful Legacy! That's awesome, Beek. Honestly I don't have any suggestions off the top of my head. Those Libris Mortis monsters were fairly unique, so there hasn't been a lot of crossover with them. Maybe some sort of demon or daemon specializing in disease? Alternately, though it's flavor is a little different, the black jinn from LoF (PF #23) might work in a pinch. If I think of something else, I'll post it. I hope you enjoy the adventure!

Maybe a leukodaemon?

D'aw. Giant skunk must have just missed the cut off for being an animal companion. *heads droops in disappointment*

Haven't read through the whole thing yet, but would like to say I'm very pleased that the entry on asuras mentions they can become non-evil with work. Nice nod to even monsters being able to attain enlightenment in Eastern mythologies.

I got the PDF this morning but it isn't the same as having a book. But that cannot be helpped since my book has not arrived yet even though it was shipped monday of last week. I choose standard shipping so it should come through the mail unless i am mistaken.

I love the art for catfolk and there a lot of good creatures in the book. But as far as nitpicks and issues so far I would say I am very disapointed in the pathfinder version of the sprite. No Fey should ever be weaker(CR1/3), dumber(Int6), and more pathetic then the Mite. Also the Atomie would have made a much better familiar option. Most other issues that I have are ether art related(no biggy) or type choices that creatures are(Yuki onna) but I will live.

There are plenty more monsters from the APs that I hope will some day make it into a Beastairy some day but I am glad for most of ones that made into this one.

I love it! I'm still sad that I can't have a giant skunk or giant porcupine animal companion... :(

Just got it. The art is really really good.

I love it.

Not sure, because of course it's my favorite monster book right now but....this might be my favorite monster book ever.

My GM showed this to us. We're excited to face many of these creatures, or to RP with them the way our GM will play them.

We do have a question. What is the difference between the Fey Animal template in "Land of the Linnorm Kings" and the Fey Creature template in this book? Why two Fey templates that can work on animals? Which one takes precedence?

We also have some suggestions for future Bestiaries. We noticed that by trying to make a creature squeeze into one or two pages, you're limiting the creature itself. A good example is the simurgh. In Pathfinder #24, it can bypass damage reduction good with its talons and it had Wholesome Touch. But these were taken out. That's just one example, and a minor one, but significant nonetheless. Maybe you guys can make the font smaller or break your philosophical opinion on keeping the page count per monster as low as possible.

The same with templates. We read about how you don't want templates to be too big, but sometimes a template that is a couple more pages isn't a bad thing. I don't think anyone has complained about a monster or template being too spacious. I think in the race to squeeze the most monsters in a book, many of the monsters lost flavor and uniqueness when compared to other creatures. When the difference between monsters is only one or 2 special abilities, they all start to look the same. More special abilities (beyond the standards, as in beyond the typical resistances, DR, fast healing/regeneration, trample, etc.) is what sets them really apart and make them more memorable. Without resorting to adding templates or class levels, that is.

Just our thoughts. We liked the way WotC did their monsters, we thought Monster Manual 4 was too wordy and Monster Manual 3 to be almost perfect, so a blend of the two would be the best route. Maybe Paizo one day does the same? If not, it's fine. Just submitting feedback.

Got mine in the mail today ... it's awesome! Not that I had any doubts ;) Thanks Paizo!

We do have a question. What is the difference between the Fey Animal template in "Land of the Linnorm Kings" and the Fey Creature template in this book? Why two Fey templates that can work on animals? Which one takes precedence?

Why does one have to take precedence? Do you have some some deep-seated unwillingness to accept that there could be both a "Fey Animal" wolf and a "Fey Creature" wolf?

I love this book, more than the second one. My only quibbles are the catfolk being too human..was hoping for a Tabaxi throwback..and the lack of animal companion rules for the giant skunk. I also notice lots of cool new creatures for the Improved Familiar feat for lawful evil and some neutral evil casters..we need more for neutral and good folks now. Overall..This book is a six star thing of beauty

Greg A. Vaughan wrote:

Beek Gwenders of Croodle wrote:

Hi Greg sorry in advance for being off topic but I couldn't find a direct contact. I am playing "Hateful Legacy" but I'd like to stick to official pathfinder or pathfinder licensed material, so I won't use the Angel of Decay write up. Do you have ideas how to replace it? Maybe some monster from Tomb of Horrors or one of the Bestiaries?

Wow, Hateful Legacy! That's awesome, Beek. Honestly I don't have any suggestions off the top of my head. Those Libris Mortis monsters were fairly unique, so there hasn't been a lot of crossover with them. Maybe some sort of demon or daemon specializing in disease? Alternately, though it's flavor is a little different, the black jinn from LoF (PF #23) might work in a pinch. If I think of something else, I'll post it. I hope you enjoy the adventure!

Maybe a leukodaemon?

A leukodaemon would work very well indeed. Not sure if I am using it as the bbeg (the party is made up of 6 of average level 10) but I am using 1 somewhere for sure.

Speaking about Bestiary 3 why did they strip weapon immunity to Guardian Daemons? That's what made the one we see in Elric stories unique!

Thalis Greatlight wrote:

We do have a question. What is the difference between the Fey Animal template in "Land of the Linnorm Kings" and the Fey Creature template in this book? Why two Fey templates that can work on animals? Which one takes precedence?

Why does one have to take precedence? Do you have some some deep-seated unwillingness to accept that there could be both a "Fey Animal" wolf and a "Fey Creature" wolf?

Could be a modification specifically for Rangers even. Animals vs Magic Beasts?

Just an idea. Got my book two days ago, it is so much awesome I can't properly contain it.