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I only have one comment about Blood of the Moon
Please Paizo..stop trying to turn Golarion into World of Darkness
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I agree with Ravenmantle. These companions hardly make Golarion a variant of the WoD. That being said having products that deal with the very real danger of becoming a Vampire or being one of those afflicted with Lycanthropy is a very lame way to lose a character. Providing a product that can guide those who want some on how to incorporate or play such a character is a wonderful thing. It sucks having a GM fiat your character out of a story just because you couldn't resist the infection or stop it in time. Playing a character falling to the disease and slowly losing themselves is an immense role playing opportunity.
I'm also really liking the idea of splitting the playing and hunting concepts. I agree that it's a disservice to both topics trying to cram them into such a small format when we've seen books like the Van Richten series which are definitely bigger. A companion on how to play X and a separate companion on how to hunt X is a much cleaner way to go about it IMO. Frankly I am more than willing to slap money down right now for us to take that approach as I'd buy both books.
I hope that Paizo will provide us a adventures/settings in which these rules can be used. Vampire and vampire-like abilities excellent counters too many typical obstacles in "normal campaign".
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I have withheld from commenting, until I actually had the PDF (which I grabbed yesterday).
I can't say I have a single complaint, and I feel it was well worth my money.
Blood of Fiends/Angels was focusing on one thing each....
Blood of the night is covering two topics, Dahmpirs (which I love), and Vampirism (which is something that any player can be afflicted with).
The possibility of being afflicted by vamparism, is in all reality probably more likely than running into a Dahmpir character....so I have no issue with the space that was dedicated to that topic.
I look foreword to Blood of the Moon ;)
Yeah a half-lycanthrope race would be pretty nice.
I agree with this. Heck, I'd enjoy anything featuring beast-folk in Golarion.
That said, if the consensus is that it wouldn't be profitable, then don't do it. I'd rather a book I'd love to see not get made in the first place than have it be made and lead to the company losing some major bucks on it.
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I think that's the difference. Do people see half-lycanthrope and think Anthropomorphic animal races similar to Catfalk, Ratfolk, Tengu and Kitsune. Or are people wanting a race that is somehow a half werewolf or a watered down were-race like shifters from Eberron. If people are thinking half lycanthrope I'd like to get a bit more on people's thoughts on what exactly they're looking for in a halfbreed that a full lycanthrope natural or afflicted doesn't provide.
Reviewed. Overall, I really loved the attempt at this. I would really look forward to Blood of the Moon! I'll have to think a bit on what I'd love to see in it if it does come to fruition...I've always been a fan of werewolves :)
I think that's the difference. Do people see half-lycanthrope and think Anthropomorphic animal races similar to Catfalk, Ratfolk, Tengu and Kitsune. Or are people wanting a race that is somehow a half werewolf or a watered down were-race like shifters from Eberron. If people are thinking half lycanthrope I'd like to get a bit more on people's thoughts on what exactly they're looking for in a halfbreed that a full lycanthrope natural or afflicted doesn't provide.
No. I hear half-lycanthrope and I think "let's take the good parts & shoehorn them into something that hasn't existed in game so we don't have to take the bad". Zero interest.
Lycanthropy is a risk players typically face somewhere along the way. Rules for handling lycanthropy and potentially even integrating a lycanthrope into a party is useful. Necessary and long overdue, even.
No thanks to half-lycanthropes. And I'd rather it take the Blood of the Night route than be the Lycanthrope-Hunter's handbook.
Multiple person over on NO half lycanthropes. There's no reason for a shifter style race in this setting/game.
(Side note: I liked the shifters in Ebberon, but really we don't need them here.)
I didn't mind the concept of Ebberon's Shifters, just their execution.
As for WoD-izing Golarion, I think people have the wrong end of the stick throwing that accusation around. Vampires and Lycanthropes are integral tropes to the Gothic Horror genre, of course, but remember I6: Ravenloft was published in 1983 and the Ravenloft Campaign Setting in 1990. WoD never had a monopoly on monstrous PCs, you could get infected or turned in DnD just as well.
Golarion also has the Ustalav region, which really does throw back to the roots of the Ravenloft setting and would be the perfect setting for vampiric or lycanthropic adventures. As intended, I dare say.
Heck, chances are this book will be used in the campaign I'm set to play in, one of the other players is playing a vampiric summoner based on Alucard of the Hellsing series. The hunger mechanic's going to come in useful at the very least!
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Quick thoughts on Patrick's question, will try to elaborate later when not on a phone
I agree with Matthew Morris on the book needing to be one or the other, and I strongly favor the "how to play as" side. That's what the racial books, including the "Blood of" books, have generally been up to this point. A book on hunting weres sounds more like the upcoming Demon Hunter guide, and that title theme is more appropriate for a Von Richten's-style book.
The feedback has been great; thanks, everybody!
Since the Player Companion line did just recently relaunch, every bit of customer feedback we get is highly valuable since it allows to fine-tune our process that much more. Readers are bound to see many of their thoughts and comments taken into consideration in Companions further down the line. The Player Companions are still very much evolving, and it's thanks to discourse like this that we're able to try out different formulas and see what works and what can be worked on.
Keep your comments for Blood of the Night coming, and we're already looking forward to your feedback on the next Player Companion due out in January—People of the North!
I liked it the way it was. I'd say a similar Blood of the Moon would be great.
Not in favor of a half-lycanthrope template at all. The offspring of a lycanthrope is a natural lycanthrope, right?
I'd be fine with Blood of the Moon being about playing both afflicted and natural lycanthropes. The lycanthrope templates, or at least the normal werewolf and wererat templates, are much weaker than the vampire templates, and a half-lycanthrope template doesn't need to be introduced.
A companion about hunting were-creatures should be separate. A player companion Werewolf Hunter's Guide that focuses on the aspect of hunting lycanthropes should be a different product from the companion about playing them.
I still hope to see a Dhampir of Golarion book as well.
One design complaint I have with the redesign of the companion line overall is that it feels more like a magazine than a book because of some of the page layouts.
My expectations of Blood of the Night were that it would be primarily about Dhampirs. Which is why I put it right on the shelf when it arrived, unread. Can't stand the bloody things.
However, I do have a necromancer. When I pulled BotN down to check out the spells in the back, I was pleasantly surprised by all the vampire content, and the relatively balanced options presented. It made me want to dig in further.
My original purpose, the spells, was not so pleasant. A fascinating pair of spells to steal years from one being to another, literally draining the life essence from them... is a transmutation spell? Truly? Please - correct this. The rest were lackluster at best - though the single necromancy spell is interesting, but only for vampires.
All in all I found this more useful than I expected, but not in the ways I expected. It was perhaps an inevitable mistake to continue the "Blood of..." line with this book, but it feels like the feel of it has been greatly muddied by this entry.
Personally, I would have no use for a player companion on lycanthropes (and half-lycanthropes makes no sense at all). If one is made, Blood of the Moon would be yet another confusing title. Probably that idea and this entry should have been combined in a Campaign Setting book, "Blood and Moon" or something.
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It was perhaps an inevitable mistake to continue the "Blood of..." line with this book, but it feels like the feel of it has been greatly muddied by this entry.
Personally, I would have no use for a player companion on lycanthropes (and half-lycanthropes makes no sense at all). If one is made, Blood of the Moon would be yet another confusing title.
A 32 page book on PC lycanthropes seems as misguided as one on PC vampires. If the game is going to explore that sort of concept, which would likely be the focus of an entire campaign, it seems that a 32 page teaser, with pages devoted to completely unrelated stuff, like Dhampirs and vampire hunters, is not going to be an adequate exploration of the topic.
A focus on some sort of lycanthrope-descended PC race, like Eberron's shifters, could fit the format of Blood of Fiends and Blood of Angels, but since there isn't already such a race (or races), a book on a race that doesn't yet exist in Golarion seems premature, especially when Golarion already has Changelings and Ifrit and Oreads and Undine and Slyphs and Suli and Fetchlings and Tengu and various other pre-existing races that could use development instead.
Creating something new to fill an artifically created niche, when you've got a bunch of pre-existing stuff waiting to be developed, seems like horse-cart-before-putting.
Then again, from a marketing standpoint, vampires have always been hot (and had entire games written about them) and werewolves are at least on the mind thanks to stuff like Twilight and Teen Wolf, so perhaps it's seen as being more market-savvy to push out dhampir and to-be-named-half-were-wolf-template critters, rather than explore races that the public imagination has never heard of, like 'half-genies' and 'toxic-blooded not-Indian snake-people.'
Plus, as the TV shows and movies love to highlight, werewolves have the fun side effect of having to rip their shirts off to use their super-powers. :)
I can hardly wait for mine to come in.
Multiple person over on NO half lycanthropes. There's no reason for a shifter style race in this setting/game.
(Side note: I liked the shifters in Ebberon, but really we don't need them here.)
What does this even mean? There's no reason for an Elf style race to exist, or a Dwarf style or a human style or any other style, and no single style is "needed" either. Not to mention we already have them in the setting with Kitsune, Tengu, ware-anything.
Shifters are cool. They were cool in Eberron, why not have them in Pathfinder?
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Because honestly they don't make a whole lot of sense. Lycanthropy is hereditary or infected and honestly if you didn't inherit it most were-pappies would probably give you the bite to keep you part of the pack. So the whole watered down version doesn't really flow too well. As for Tengu and Kitsune. There's a difference between Were/Lycanthropes and anthropomorphic race based on folklore tricksters who shapechange. Kitsune and Tengu are most definitely NOT shifters in the Eberron sense nor are they Lycanthropic as they don't infect people.
Shifters were a very Eberron thing they fit the world and made sense there as Lycanthropes were basically hunted hard on a continent wide status. Preventing the "Oh son you didn't get the gift lemme fix that" scenario. Full blown Lycanthropes are pretty plentiful by comparison in Golarion. Ustalav and Darkmoon Vale are prime examples.
*Cough* IP and Copyrights *Cough*.
If Paizo to make any race that too closely resembles a shifter,
chances are Paizo will be sued over Copyright and or IP Infringement from WotC/Hasbro.
Since WotC/Hasbro is very protective of their IP.
The reason we have Kitsune and Tengu is because they are from folklore and thus Public Domain.
Personally I think the Blood books followed a formula that Night just didn't. Its not a bad book, on the contrary, just definitly not what I was looking forward to which was a more thorough serving of Dhampir. The idea of of looking more indepthly into a monster, playing said monster race and those who hunt them seems more fitting to its own line (I know it was done in 3rd edition Ravenloft and I loved those books), not co-opting a pattern that's almost been established by the two Blood books before it.
If a Blood of the Moon is to be made, I'd rather it cover a new PC to be introduced, a playable Half-Lycanthrope. Cover Lycanthropes in a seperate line, leave Blood books to cover playable low racial point characters. Also, as I just read Inner Sea Beastiary is there any chance to cover Androids? Blood or Artifice maybe? They fascinate me so.
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I wonder if Pharasma considers androids abominations?
She considers undead abominations for taking an end run around her portfolio of death, would she also have a mad hate on androids for bypassing her dominion over birth? By Pharasmin tenets, they come into this world in an 'unnatural' manner, and she's very clear on it not mattering what you do or what you believe, only that you follow her rules on entering and exiting the freeway of life.
Just to belatedly chime in on this whole debacle .
I agree with the group who's saying that the whole vampire section didn't really belong in the book. It's only a 32-page book, and there would have been more than enough to say about dhampirs without clouding the issue with all the various sorts of vampires too.
For years now, I've been asking for a Savage Species-style book covering monster advancement and the like; it seems like instead of creating such a bestiary toolbox book, we're getting bits and pieces of such material into odd places like the Player Companion line.
Please stop doing that. If we're going to have material about actual monsters, make it in an actual monster book. Call it the Bestiary Toolbox or Ultimate Monsters or the Advanced Bestiary (yeah, I know that name's taken ... but it was such an awesome book :) and put no actual monsters in it, just all these alternate abilities and feats and templates and the like - and stop making it look like only certain races, monsters etc. can do certain things.
For example, really? Only vampires can have Improved Gaseous Form and Improved Swarm Form? Why? I'm so extremely tired of overspecialized feats. Does this mean we'll have another version of Improved Gaseous Form specific to ogre magi and any other creature that can be gaseous, and another version of Improved Swarm Form for mummies in the future? (I'm assuming we'll have a swarm shifter mummy variant at some point if we don't already; I may have missed it along the way)
Now, don't get me wrong. I don't have any issues with what's actually in the book (other than the overspecialization issue, which is something the Paizo development staff appears to be fond of), but it's just too spread out.
So, when Blood of the Moon comes out, and it should, it should focus on one thing: characters, both PCs and NPCs, that are infected with lycanthropy. I can't imagine it will be hard to fill 32 pages with that type of material. But please, cool it with the one size fits one thing feats. I don't want to see a Fast Change feat that lets only werewolves change form more quickly, or anything like that. If there's going to be a feat that lets a creature change form more quickly, have it be that, not a feat specific to left-handed werewolves from towns of less than 500 people in eastern Ustalav.
On the other hand, also please start thinking about putting some of this GM stuff in the actual GM pipeline. Tossing 20+ pages of vampire stuff into a Player Companion book doesn't really fit, especially when it's really spaced out (1 feat on a page?). And doubly so when parts of could could just be part of general bestiary support instead of specific to vampires, or lycanthropes, or what-have-you. Note that this issue is not specific to Blood of the Night. Only ghouls can gain a burrow speed with a feat, or pass for a non-undead creature, or gain knowledge by eating brains (Classic Horrors Revisited)? Only catfolk can gain pounce via a feat (one of many such examples from the Advanced Race Guide)?
A lot of this material should be in a bestiary toolbox instead of slipped in as something only one creature in the universe can do, but I'm afraid we're painted into a corner now and can't escape :/
Well said, I would never allow vampire PC's in my game, unless it was a monstropolous crazy game with all types. Whereas Dhampirs certainly needed some more love than they received, or even more on killing vampires ... a time honoured DnD tradition!
The big bonus I was looking for was the Life-Dominant Soul feat. That feat makes Dhampirs a viable race in normal campaigns.
Well this has finally arrived and I've checked it out, having basically ignored the PDF until now. And I must say that this is really the first Pathfinder book that I can really see absolutely no use for me for.
The whole content, especially being a player options book, is distasteful to me somehow, and I really wouldn't want to see anything from this book in a campaign I run or play in. There have book books before that were only minimally useful, but this one really has zero useful content for me.
I detest the idea of "dhampirs" (even the name is ridiculous) and I will replace any I encounter in adventures I end up running with something else.
I don't want to play World of Darkness, and I hope this trend does not continue. So, my voice is for, please, no Blood of the Moon or whatever else falls into this category.
Well, anyway, it's not that I'm canceling subscriptions over this. It had to happen sometime. I just jupe it doesn't become a regular issue.
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For years now, I've been asking for a Savage Species-style book covering monster advancement and the like; it seems like instead of creating such a bestiary toolbox book, we're getting bits and pieces of such material into odd places like the Player Companion line.
Please stop doing that. If we're going to have material about actual monsters, make it in an actual monster book. Call it the Bestiary Toolbox or Ultimate Monsters or the Advanced Bestiary (yeah, I know that name's taken ... but it was such an awesome book :) and put no actual monsters in it, just all these alternate abilities and feats and templates and the like - and stop making it look like only certain races, monsters etc. can do certain things. .
I would shell out good coin for a Pathfinder version of Savage Species!
Well this has finally arrived and I've checked it out, having basically ignored the PDF until now. And I must say that this is really the first Pathfinder book that I can really see absolutely no use for me for.
The whole content, especially being a player options book, is distasteful to me somehow, and I really wouldn't want to see anything from this book in a campaign I run or play in. There have book books before that were only minimally useful, but this one really has zero useful content for me.
I detest the idea of "dhampirs" (even the name is ridiculous) and I will replace any I encounter in adventures I end up running with something else.
I don't want to play World of Darkness, and I hope this trend does not continue. So, my voice is for, please, no Blood of the Moon or whatever else falls into this category.
Well, anyway, it's not that I'm canceling subscriptions over this. It had to happen sometime. I just jupe it doesn't become a regular issue.
Is not like Paizo named the dhampirs...
As an aside, I think the argument "I don't want to play World of Darkeness!" is tired. If You don't like it, don't play it. Paizo reaches out to demographics - its why they're successful. I haven't seen people complaining about the Pirates of the Inner Sea shouting "I don't want to play Pirates of the Carabbian, Paizo!"
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Is not like Paizo named the dhampirs...
I know that :)
As an aside, I think the argument "I don't want to play World of Darkeness!" is tired. If You don't like it, don't play it. Paizo reaches out to demographics - its why they're successful.
I',m not saying they should not have published this book. And I don't mind the occaslional book I have little use for. I just found it interesting that this is the first book that really has nothing at all useful for me. And on top of that it feels to me as if it were written for a different game.
It is all fair and well for people to say they like it and they'd like to get something similar for werewolves. But it should be just as fair for me to say I'd rather not see a book like that.
I haven't seen people complaining about the Pirates of the Inner Sea shouting "I don't want to play Pirates of the Carabbian, Paizo!"
Well I have, at the time.
Mmm. Pirates of Carrabbas.
*windows explode with pirates*
"Arr! Give us all the pasta and breadsticks or yer all walking the plank into the Dillards parking lot!"
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I haven't seen people complaining about the Pirates of the Inner Sea shouting "I don't want to play Pirates of the Carabbian, Paizo!"
Not going to lie, I was not at all keen on either the Pirate fad or the Eastern push fad these last few years. I actually discontinued the AP subscription because of it. I know that there where a few others as well, but I think most of us just rolled our eyes and thought it was cool for the people that did want it.
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Oh wow. I never even thought this product was for players; I don't typically follow Paizo's categories, and now that I see 'player companion' I see why people are so irked about this not being enough about Dhampires. I for one really enjoyed all the info on Vamps, and wouldn't say no to one all about lycanthropes, for players or not.
BTW, Half-lycanthropes confuse me, as a lycanthrope is already essentially half-a-human, half-a-beast. That said, I did love Eberron's shifters, (my players took to calling them the 'Wolverine' race) and while I'm not sure how you'd do something similar, I'd be interested! In general, I don't like any half-breed races, (even Dhampires, which I enjoy) because none are designed with a mentality of: maybe they slept with, oh, I don't know, a dwarf or an elf! It is always humans only.
Alright, I'm going to start rambling, so, shutting up!
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The amount of resistance to anything that's not "dragons and princesses medieval fantasy" among D&D player base never ceases to amaze me.
Sword and planet? "Stop turning my game into Star Wars scifi robot lazors!"
Guns? "Stop turning my game into steampunk!"
Asian themes? "Stop turning my game into L5R!"
Vampires? "Stop turning my game into WoD!"
I wonder how many do actually know what WoD is about, apart from being aware that it has vampires and werewolves and you get to play them.
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Gorbacz my friend, you don't understand. There simply isn't enough "dragons and princesses medieval fantasy" support yet.
I don't have any problem with the themes of the book, I just think the decision to devote half of the book to vampires was not very well thought out. Never once have I thought that vampires were appropriate player characters, especially since PF is trying to stay away from the template/LA madness of 3.5. Nothing in this book helped change this notion, and I feel its limited space would have much better served characters if it focused on dhampir or undead hunting. And yes, that's undead hunting, not just vampire hunting. I've been playing Pathfinder for 3 years now, and I have not once encountered a vampire. With hundreds of monsters available to challenge players, specializing on hunting an extremely specific subset is far too narrow for my tastes.
I'm still looking forward to People of the North and Animal Archive, but if the book wastes precious space on how to play/hunt a wendigo or rules for hibernating then I'm done with the Player Companion line.
I like the rules for hunger. Better than what I had developed. Mine were a little more harsh, as I have vampires only capable of drink fresh blood of sentient creatures. But that is my personal preference for vampirism as I treat it much more like a supernatural curse like in Slavic mythology, not biological like you see in more contemporary fantasy.
And while some people may not have seen vampire hunters more often in games, I've noticed a spike in them in my area thanks to this book. I know of three games going on where people are playing vampire hunters and one Way of the Wicked game where a character is a very cruel, very vicious vampire tyrant.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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I think the people upset with this book are coming from two different directions.
One: people who thought that this was going to be "Blood of Fiends/Angels" for Dhampirs, when it turned out to be something else.
Two: people who are in games where full blown monster PC's will never be allowed, making this book (at least to them) of little use as a player resource.
I think there's a third group. Those who don't mind the idea, but think it was 'shafted' by a schitzophrenic book.
If you're going to talk about Pathfinder:The Masquerade, it needs more than 20 some pages. How do you handle the shift to CE? (Even if the players don't plan on it, the urge is still there) How do divine characters deal with being made int undead. How do Vampires interact with clerics or Urgotha? Is there a cure? Examples of vampire controlled/influenced cities/towns. How to avoid detection?
The hunger mechanic was nice (but not the bloodwine thing *shudder*) but it was lacking as a vampire PG, lacking as a hunter PG, and sorely lacking as a dhampire PG.
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I agree. I'm with all three though I really don't see the WoD link beyond superficial. My main issue is that it doesn't have nearly enough for any of the three areas it tries to cover. If you dropped the Vampire PC's portion I'm still not sure that just 2 subjects woud have gotten enough info in a single book.
Ultimate Magic? Agh! Stop turning this game into Mage: the Ascension!
I don't think half-lycanthropes can exist because lycanthrope is a curse, not a bloodline. How is it that NO ONE ELSE has said this yet? I'm always late on this sort of thing.
As for the people saying things that seems like they believe that vampires can't be PCs in a normal game: If you're the DM and you put an NPC vampire in the mix, then you're making it a possibility and you need to be ready to deal with it. I may be alone on this, but I think most people would rather have a character die a heroic death fighting that vampire than to be turned and then the DM ask for the character sheet. That would insult me. "You're not adult enough to handle this and I know it, so you can't play that character."
Same goes for lycanthrope. The character only becomes a mass murdering beast under certain circumstances. It's not Instant NPC-ville.
If you're assailing your players with these monsters and not allowing them to roleplay their character's journey through the afflictions they present, whether they embrace it or try to get rid of it... I don't know what that makes you, but it doesn't have any positive connotations in my book.
Not excited about the vampire stuff here but I do hope a lycanthrope players' guide is in the talks.
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If you're going to talk about Pathfinder: The Masquerade, it needs more than 20 some pages.
Like the kingdom-building rules introduced through the Kingmaker AP, I think a *serious* treatment of a monster species as PC mechanic / setting element would probably be better handled in a larger volume, or as part of an AP.
An 'everyone's a vampire / werewolf / aquatic creature / goblin / strix / android / evil character' AP, for instance, would have more room to explore the concept, instead of the somewhat cursory treatment the topic gets in a Players Companion (particularly when at least some of it was *also* devoted to dhampir PCs and to vampire hunters, leaving all three topics more flirted with than actually explored).
But that would lock Paizo into six months of something that at least *some* of their customer base would hate with a fiery passion, so it's probably the sort of thing that only third parties can explore, as happened with Way of the Wicked.