Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Monster Codex (OGL)

Personally I think this book should be renamed the "Villain Codex" since the term monster would mean to me that there are actually monsters in here like chimera, drider, medusa, sphinx, lamia, harpy, basilisk, minotaur, pixie, aboleth, etc.

While I like the idea of this book, I don't like how specialized it is, wich means it could take like 40 volumes before I see the races/creatures I want to see done.

Hopefully next year will be Bestiary 5, never get tired of hardcover bestiaries.

How is a troll not a monster?

Among the 10 stat blocks for each monster, will there be at least one "grunt" NPC with levels in the Warrior class? As much as I like using humanoid monsters with class levels in my games, monsters with levels in a PC class tend to have way too much wealth for the challenge they pose to the PCs, resulting in a situation where the PCs end up with too much wealth for their level.

Typically no. The "grunt" versions of monsters are the ones given in the Bestiary. Most of those have warrior levels.

What?!

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What!?
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That was my first reaction. I'm sold, I totally want a book that gives me prebuilt stat blocks and archetypes for the monstrous races I love. The only problem is now I might want to wait to build my ratfolk character for pfs until this comes out to see if it has and interesting archetypes.

Will all of the archetypes be new or will they be reprints from things like the ARG?

All archetypes will be new. Some of the NPCs may use material (including archetypes) from the Advanced Race Guide. In some place we are reprinting and updating material that originally appeared outside the Core line of books, but we are not reprinting material found in the Core line, only citing their source when they are used.

I showed the Gamers Den owner this book and we are both waiting on this tome for our respective campaigns.

I'm looking forward to this book. It looks like it'll have a ton of useful content for the typical GM. In most campaigns, certainly ones I've run, you're going to see at least some of these "common" humanoids and other critters and having time saving pre-gen monsters to put in as leaders and big bosses along with the base creatures is great. I personally liked MM4 and MM5 for 3.5 and this looks like it takes some of what those books did and puts a lot of focus towards specific races. What will I find more useful: 10 variant serpentfolk (for that Freeport game) or the 300th 3E/d20/PF flavor of spider?

Don't get me wrong, I want to see a Bestiary 5 and NPC Codex 2 as well. I love, love monster books. But I like the idea behind this book and look forward to getting my hands on it.

Also a fan of the cover art.

How is a evil aligned troll with class levels not a villain?

doc the grey wrote:

What?!

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What!?
o.0

That was my first reaction. I'm sold, I totally want a book that gives me prebuilt stat blocks and archetypes for the monstrous races I love. The only problem is now I might want to wait to build my ratfolk character for pfs until this comes out to see if it has and interesting archetypes.

Will all of the archetypes be new or will they be reprints from things like the ARG?

All archetypes will be new. Some of the NPCs may use material (including archetypes) from the Advanced Race Guide. In some place we are reprinting and updating material that originally appeared outside the Core line of books, but we are not reprinting material found in the Core line, only citing their source when they are used.

I'm curious about something. James said that the archetypes in this book are non player-friendly, but is that just because their synthesist summoner levels of overpowered, or is it because that most players just won't have a use for something that niche?

Stephen Radney-MacFarland wrote:

doc the grey wrote:

What?!

0.0
What!?
o.0

That was my first reaction. I'm sold, I totally want a book that gives me prebuilt stat blocks and archetypes for the monstrous races I love. The only problem is now I might want to wait to build my ratfolk character for pfs until this comes out to see if it has and interesting archetypes.

Will all of the archetypes be new or will they be reprints from things like the ARG?

All archetypes will be new. Some of the NPCs may use material (including archetypes) from the Advanced Race Guide. In some place we are reprinting and updating material that originally appeared outside the Core line of books, but we are not reprinting material found in the Core line, only citing their source when they are used.

I'm curious about something. James said that the archetypes in this book are non player-friendly, but is that just because their synthesist summoner levels of overpowered, or is it because that most players just won't have a use for something that niche?

Most players will not have use for something that niche. The main goal of the archetypes is to fit within the scope of the monster, but we are not looking to make things overpowered. Believe it or not, that is never our goal. :)

Most players will not have use for something that niche. The main goal of the archetypes is to fit within the scope of the monster, but we are not looking to make things overpowered. Believe it or not, that is never our goal. :)

So instead of overpowered would you consider the archetypes and feats in this book would add to an existing creature’s role via hyper-optimization?

Axial wrote:

Stephen Radney-MacFarland wrote:

doc the grey wrote:

What?!

0.0
What!?
o.0

That was my first reaction. I'm sold, I totally want a book that gives me prebuilt stat blocks and archetypes for the monstrous races I love. The only problem is now I might want to wait to build my ratfolk character for pfs until this comes out to see if it has and interesting archetypes.

Will all of the archetypes be new or will they be reprints from things like the ARG?

All archetypes will be new. Some of the NPCs may use material (including archetypes) from the Advanced Race Guide. In some place we are reprinting and updating material that originally appeared outside the Core line of books, but we are not reprinting material found in the Core line, only citing their source when they are used.

I'm curious about something. James said that the archetypes in this book are non player-friendly, but is that just because their synthesist summoner levels of overpowered, or is it because that most players just won't have a use for something that niche?

Most players will not have use for something that niche. The main goal of the archetypes is to fit within the scope of the monster, but we are not looking to make things overpowered. Believe it or not, that is never our goal. :)

I did not mean to accuse; but I simply figured that the "villain" centered options were meant to provide players with a significant challenge. The real purpose of my question is, if I see a Hobgoblin archetype here and say, "I wanna play that!" to my GM, could he allow it without putting other players at a disadvantage or something?

How is a evil aligned troll with class levels not a villain?

Just curious here...and trying to get it straight...

Any enemy without class levels of some sort(just HD) is a monster?

Any enemy with class levels (even on top of racial HDs) is a villain?

Is that what you mean?

No, but a monster or person with the skill, mind, and/or power to play the role of a villain tends to have class levels. Considering all the creatures listed are humanoid in shape and many of them do not have racial HD, so many of them need class levels to be more then just random encounter/dungeon fodder. But once you add class levels, you have a creature that is more then an average of his kind, he has drive, ambitions, ideals. So you turn him into a character with a name, personality, etc. If he is evil you can make him a villain and important to the story instead of monster#238. While there are monsters that do not need class levels to be villains like dragons and powerful outsiders there are plenty of creatures that do. Though with templates and if we get monster archetypes in this book, then yeah you can make a generic creature into something memorable as well.

Sigh, well, I was hoping for an Advanced NPC Codex but this is better than nothing I suppose. At least I'll get to see some different takes on the vampire.

I don't see class levels necessitating character (it helps though).

Likely, if you have a plotline featuring lots of bad guys of a specific race, than you probably have the canon fodder low level goons, elite troops, bodyguards, scouts, specialized troops, sergeants, witch doctors, chieftains, etc. If this book fills out these roles for each of the major races covered here, I will be pretty happy.

I agree with you about having all those different roles for many of those races MMCJawa. Except in the cases of vampires, trolls, fire giants, frost giants and maybe ghouls.

With vampire spawn, you can have mooks for vampires.

Maerimydra wrote:

Among the 10 stat blocks for each monster, will there be at least one "grunt" NPC with levels in the Warrior class? As much as I like using humanoid monsters with class levels in my games, monsters with levels in a PC class tend to have way too much wealth for the challenge they pose to the PCs, resulting in a situation where the PCs end up with too much wealth for their level.

Typically no. The "grunt" versions of monsters are the ones given in the Bestiary. Most of those have warrior levels.

In the case of monsters with racial hit dice, I totally agree, but 1st-level warrior humanoid with 0 racial hit die, like the ones in the Bestiary, quickly become irrelevant as ''grunts''.

Nonetheless, this book is going to make my conversion of "Red Hand of Doom" to Pathfinder much more easier, which is a good thing.

I agree with you about having all those different roles for many of those races MMCJawa. Except in the cases of vampires, trolls, fire giants, frost giants and maybe ghouls.

Wolfgang Baur exists: therefore, ghouls have many roles. ^.^

No, but a monster or person with the skill, mind, and/or power to play the role of a villain tends to have class levels. Considering all the creatures listed are humanoid in shape and many of them do not have racial HD, so many of them need class levels to be more then just random encounter/dungeon fodder. But once you add class levels, you have a creature that is more then an average of his kind, he has drive, ambitions, ideals. So you turn him into a character with a name, personality, etc. If he is evil you can make him a villain and important to the story instead of monster#238. While there are monsters that do not need class levels to be villains like dragons and powerful outsiders there are plenty of creatures that do. Though with templates and if we get monster archetypes in this book, then yeah you can make a generic creature into something memorable as well.

Okay I get what you are saying. Thanks for clearing that up.

Among the 10 stat blocks for each monster, will there be at least one "grunt" NPC with levels in the Warrior class? As much as I like using humanoid monsters with class levels in my games, monsters with levels in a PC class tend to have way too much wealth for the challenge they pose to the PCs, resulting in a situation where the PCs end up with too much wealth for their level.

I think there might be sligt confusion here. If a creature with class levels is being run by the GM, they are an NPC, and should have the NPC wealth entry for their level. It doesn't matter if those levels are in one of the NPC only classes, or in a normal PC class.

The PC wealth by level table is purely for your player's characters. If it's used for one of your NPCs, they should probably get an ad hoc +1 CR boost (this should probably be done sparingly, in order to avoid the wealth inflation you are seeing).

I agree with you about having all those different roles for many of those races MMCJawa. Except in the cases of vampires, trolls, fire giants, frost giants and maybe ghouls.

I am inclined to agree with you on vampires, but the rest of those races do form their own "societies", so I would expect a range of levels and classes.

Vampires seem to be (at least how I envision them) to either dwell among humans, or to be loners who tend to have lots of lackeys and minions, most of which are not vampires. Although hey...that is not the case in all their uses in fiction (30 Days of Night and the Blade series being obvious examples).

Also vampire spawn are there low level goons/grunts so we don't need them but we could use examples of more classes for vampires then we have gotten so far.

It's not clear to me what itch this is scratching. If I want monsters, I have the Bestiaries. If I want to customize monsters, I can add class levels and use the feats available to PCs. If I want ecologies, I can go to the Pathfinder "Revisited" line. If I want the option of having monsters as PCs, I can use the Advanced Race Guide.

What am I not "getting" here? Maybe if some specific examples are elaborated, I could see the usefulness of this.

To address my own question, I see usefulness for this book along the lines of what MMCJawa says above: for an adventure that involves a society of this particular creature. A mountain tribe of orcs, for example.

Dragon78 wrote:

I agree with you about having all those different roles for many of those races MMCJawa. Except in the cases of vampires, trolls, fire giants, frost giants and maybe ghouls.

I am inclined to agree with you on vampires, but the rest of those races do form their own "societies", so I would expect a range of levels and classes.

Vampires seem to be (at least how I envision them) to either dwell among humans, or to be loners who tend to have lots of lackeys and minions, most of which are not vampires. Although hey...that is not the case in all their uses in fiction (30 Days of Night and the Blade series being obvious examples).

Another good example are the Vampire Counts of Warhammer Fantasy, which are a kingdom ruled by vampires.

If I want to customize monsters, I can add class levels and use the feats available to PCs.

I think the title is a clue: the NPC Codex was composed of Core races and classes. Everything in the book is something a GM could have made themselves with existing rules. But having the stat blocks pre-printed and numbers already crunched can save a lot of GMs a lot of time.

I am so excited for this.

This was the kind of product I wanted the NPC Codex to be. I've pushed for this book a couple times.
I was uncertain of I was going to continue subscribing to the RPG line but Paizo has managed to lock my money.

Indeed. Statting up a drop bear would be like making stats for a jackalope or a snipe: they're pranks, not cryptids or myths.

Though we do have stats for a platypus, but that's evolution's prank.

What's your problem with the snipe?

Ross Byers wrote:

Indeed. Statting up a drop bear would be like making stats for a jackalope or a snipe: they're pranks, not cryptids or myths.

Though we do have stats for a platypus, but that's evolution's prank.

What's your problem with the snipe?

Snipe hunt

I'm looking forward to this, I imagine it will be quite useful to me as a DM. I've certainly found the NPC Codex very, very handy. I am however, a little disconcerted that we get this, including examples using the newest class guide material, before we get a Codex for the advanced players guide, UC and UM books. I know of many occasions where I would have loved to be able to pull out a codex 2 and be presented with a statblock for a CR whatever alchemist, eidolon, or witch etc.

Will there be a bard archetype for vampires who get their fries stolen by their dads?

Specifically if they were tiefling vampires.

Morbius X wrote:

Evil Midnight Lurker wrote:

...I hate to be the negative nelly, but this is giving me screaming flashbacks to 3.5's MM 4 and 5, which absolutely none of the gamers in my group liked, and which turned out to be the harbingers of 4th Edition.

With the Strategy Guide and now this, I am kinda scared too. But they're going so strong, I think Paizo is just taking a break and doing simple things before bringing out more goodies later.

I'm seeing it differently.

The game has been going strong for 5 years. A lot of rules. I know many complain of rules bloat. I read that one of Paizo's approach to D&D Next is not to directly compete - if next brings in a bunch of new players, and some of them want something else, they will move to Pathfinder. These books are a great place to start for people just getting into the game - and while many of us have been playing for a very long time, these kind of things are very good for start up players.
I think it is looking at the long term, and helping bring new players into Pathfinder, rather than end of life cycle products. Sort of a "we've been around a while, lets set up stuff for new players so we can keep going" rather than "we've run out of ideas".

This makes sense and is sound in logic. I mean, they still have their MMO coming out I think and they do need to make things easier for new players as well as veterans. They have plenty of goodies to come.

Morbius X wrote:

Evil Midnight Lurker wrote:

...I hate to be the negative nelly, but this is giving me screaming flashbacks to 3.5's MM 4 and 5, which absolutely none of the gamers in my group liked, and which turned out to be the harbingers of 4th Edition.

With the Strategy Guide and now this, I am kinda scared too. But they're going so strong, I think Paizo is just taking a break and doing simple things before bringing out more goodies later.

I'm seeing it differently.

The game has been going strong for 5 years. A lot of rules. I know many complain of rules bloat. I read that one of Paizo's approach to D&D Next is not to directly compete - if next brings in a bunch of new players, and some of them want something else, they will move to Pathfinder. These books are a great place to start for people just getting into the game - and while many of us have been playing for a very long time, these kind of things are very good for start up players.
I think it is looking at the long term, and helping bring new players into Pathfinder, rather than end of life cycle products. Sort of a "we've been around a while, lets set up stuff for new players so we can keep going" rather than "we've run out of ideas".

It's also great for those of us with a loose grasp of the rules and not much interest in changing that. A book of interestingly developed, classic monsters is excellent for me (and the flavour material around society/ecology is awesome).

The pathfinder edifice is pretty imposing - some simplifying books/tools which build on old material rather than adding heaps of new stuff are always welcome, as far as I'm concerned.

This book looks awesome, and I like that cover. What I look forward to most is the orc and gnoll entries. More gnoll stuff is always welcome. Hopefully this will give the gnoll a matriarchal society more reminiscent of the hyenas they are based off (and hell, their "patron deity" is Lamashtu).

As for the complaining about this book instead of a Bestiary 5: We just had a Bestiary 4 last year. It was bound to be a Codex (many were thinking NPC Codex 2), and you can be sure that next year they will probably have your Bestiary 5.

And I have nightmares about the Monster Manual 4 and 5, but I really don't think this will be anyway near as bad as those 2 horrendous books.

The next "NPC Codex" has more chances to feature classes from Advanced Players Guide, Ultimate Magic and Ultimate Combat than Advanced Classes Guide...

Playable Orc, Hobgoblin and Ratfolk archetypes please!

Indeed. Statting up a drop bear would be like making stats for a jackalope or a snipe: they're pranks, not cryptids or myths.

Though we do have stats for a platypus, but that's evolution's prank.

d20 Modern has stats for a drop bear

And it's an urban legend considered significant enough to have a wikipedia entry (not that that means much of anything). To me what makes a good monster is if it can be useful in a campaign, not what its origins are. Think about it: the jabberwock is the subject of a silly word-play poem. It was made up by the mind of one person and is not actually mythical nor has roots in myth in any way. But it was considered worthy of being turned into an actual monster. I realize something like a drop bear is nowhere near as cool as a jabberwock--but I'm just saying, origins are a poor reason to ixnay a monster.

That a drop bear doesn't DO much, or other monsters can do what they do better--that might be a fair argument.

Here, for those of you who want one, here's a revision/conversion based on the d20 Modern stats (no guarantees of quality):

So will these archetypes be for the there classes or will it actually be an archetype for the monster itself? That would be cool, instead of adding templates you could alter there racial/monster abilities with archetypes.

So will these archetypes be for the there classes or will it actually be an archetype for the monster itself? That would be cool, instead of adding templates you could alter there racial/monster abilities with archetypes.

The archetypes are for classes.

Curious about something. Will it be like the NPC Codex, and have write-ups for level 1-20 for each of these monsters, like they did for the different classes? Or something completely different?

A sahuagin overlord-type would be a nice one to have, as I need one for a ruler of an empire. I could just make one myself, but hoping for a prewritten one.

Is it October yet?

The real question is: when do we get a "Lords of Madness" book in this style? This books sounds awesome and all, but I want more info for Aboleths and other awesome aberrations!

I have a feeling that this book will be pushed back until December given that the Strategy Guide is set to be released in the same month. That book has been pushed back a couple of times and I don't see it being delayed any longer than it already has been.

I have a feeling you might be right about that Haunted Jester. It would be unusual to see two hardcover books released in the same month.

I have a feeling that this book will be pushed back until December given that the Strategy Guide is set to be released in the same month. That book has been pushed back a couple of times and I don't see it being delayed any longer than it already has been.

Over my dead body. ;)

The real question is : When there will be the Smurfs Codex with builds of Smurfs for all levels ?

The real question is: when do we get a "Lords of Madness" book in this style? This books sounds awesome and all, but I want more info for Aboleths and other awesome aberrations!

From the Department of Expectation Management:

This book is not going to be a "Lords of Madness" style book in the first place. It's going to be a lot closer to NPC Codex. It's not going to have a lot of in-depth world content; it's a world-neutal book that focuses pretty heavilly on stat blocks and rules, not so much on ecologies and the like... there'll be some elements of that in here, but if you're looking for that kind of info, we've already published books for these monsters in the various Revisited books.

The cover is cool - looks like all the monsters are getting together to discuss the hero problem. I suppose after a dozen APs they are sick of the slaughter and looking for a few new tricks.

The cover is cool - looks like all the monsters are getting together to discuss the hero problem. I suppose after a dozen APs they are sick of the slaughter and looking for a few new tricks.

Maybe they are cooking the remains of the last hero they faced?

From the Department of Expectation Management:

This book is not going to be a "Lords of Madness" style book in the first place. It's going to be a lot closer to NPC Codex. It's not going to have a lot of in-depth world content; it's a world-neutal book that focuses pretty heavilly on stat blocks and rules, not so much on ecologies and the like... there'll be some elements of that in here, but if you're looking for that kind of info, we've already published books for these monsters in the various Revisited books.

Ah well. Slightly disappointed, but thanks James - consider my expectations well managed.

So will this one have chapter openers like other hardcack books?