Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Bestiary 5 (OGL)

Then maybe Samy, you should try being a layout editor for the next Hardcover...

That won't change Samy's preferences either.

Then maybe Samy, you should try being a layout editor for the next Hardcover...

Do you think that would change my preferences, or other peoples'?

Edit: Ninjad by TOZ.

I don't actually think at this point that you can really change much more about the layout and flavor text. Art is important and you can only shrink that down so far. Stats are what differentiates a monster from the rest of the hordes, and gives it a distinct flavor. You can only cut so much from that. Making every monster 2 page still won't help the dragons, and legitimately not all creatures need as much flavor as others. And drastically cutting down the number of monsters is going to be a turn off for some people.

My only suggestion forward would be, perhaps adding an extra page of text for new members of major groups. You already do this for some creatures, such as robots or new outsider types. Maybe that extra page could of flavor at the beginning of some monsters could also go towards new sets of dragons or other major themed groups that you flesh out.

Also if the Revisited series could...maybe be a bit more regular, that would help fleshing out some groups. And of course future books along the lines of the Monster Codex.

I buy Bestiaries for art and stats. Fluff is something I can have in AP and setting lines.

So what is your favorite 0HD race in the book?

I would say the Reptoid for the new ones and the Ghoran over all.

Also many people seem to be pissed off because the book re-used many creatures from other pathfinder products.

I can somewhat agree with that and I hope bestiary 6 does this on a lower level, only re-use creatures from the AP bestiaries, and give those new artwork to give us who possess the AP something new as well. A maximum of 30 or 40 creatures from AP would be enough I guess.

The Inner Sea Bestiary and the Occult Bestiary creatures should stay in there and not be used in hardcover bestiaries in my opinion. Too bad for the Whirlmaw and Fear Eater, but they should have been in the hardcover bestiary to begin with! :-p

So what is your favorite 0HD race in the book?

I would say the Reptoid for the new ones and the Ghoran over all.

Probably the Orang Pendek, as far as new material goes. Although I still want a medium sized, more wookie-like half Sasquatch race.

Followed by Deep One Hybrid.

Mark,

What about introducing the lost/cut material on the web site as a Director's Cut to the books, not unlike what was done with Dragon and Dungeon magazine articles? It seems you folks already have the material -- since you have to cut it out -- so putting it into a small PDF and tossed on the site could satisfy those looking for a ton of monsters per book and those looking for more information per book.

Thanks!
Robert

Given the nightmares that things like subdomains in blog entries have given us from continuity-checking standpoints, this isn't really a viable option. Not to mention that we don't have room in the schedule for adding extra products, which a PDF is -- it still needs to go through the same in-house production process as a physical book, so it's not less work than doing a print product.

knightnday wrote:

Mark,

What about introducing the lost/cut material on the web site as a Director's Cut to the books, not unlike what was done with Dragon and Dungeon magazine articles? It seems you folks already have the material -- since you have to cut it out -- so putting it into a small PDF and tossed on the site could satisfy those looking for a ton of monsters per book and those looking for more information per book.

Thanks!
Robert

Given the nightmares that things like subdomains in blog entries have given us from continuity-checking standpoints, this isn't really a viable option. Not to mention that we don't have room in the schedule for adding extra products, which a PDF is -- it still needs to go through the same in-house production process as a physical book, so it's not less work than doing a print product.

Bummer. Thanks for the reply, Jessica! If nothing else, maybe all the material from all the various books can be scooped together into a giant From The Vaults hardback. (free idea in case you guys run low on things! ;) )

Yeah, cut material doesn't usually go away--if we don't use it in the book it's intended for, it often finds its way into APs or Campaign Settings or Player Companions. :-)

Dragon78 wrote:

So what is your favorite 0HD race in the book?

I would say the Reptoid for the new ones and the Ghoran over all.

Probably the Orang Pendek, as far as new material goes. Although I still want a medium sized, more wookie-like half Sasquatch race.

Followed by Deep One Hybrid.

I like all of them quite a lot. Shabti and the Astomoi are both really cool in terms of abilities and potential story telling.

I also like the Astomoi.

I also like the Astomoi.

What's not to love about a race who are able to confuse people by simply holding a sandwich and being able to eat, drink, see and smell despite having no physical features. And how can they pull this off? they are almost purely psychic minds with a connection to the deeper cosmos(or at least I think that's how they do it).

I like the shabti because 1. You are immortal, so until you actually get killed off for good, you cannot die from old age. 2. You were originally some puppet created by some horrible person who wanted to avoid punishment for their actions, but you got freed by some psychopomps when they realised that you were actually blameless for those crimes(yay psychopomps being good guys) 3. They make really good kineticists since they can resist negative level penalties for the overwhelming minds, and they have bonuses to charisma and constitution.

Actually 3 of the playable races are functionally immortal(age wise). Ghorans can reseed, shabti are immortal, and while deep one hybrids do age, when they reach the vernrable age band for half-orcs, they die and reincarnate into fully fledged deep ones(after gaining a +6 in str and con and a -2 Dex penalty) which are immortal due to their own abilities.

Im a bit torn on the fluff vs number debate. I do love fluff and this bestiary seemed a little lacking in that. On the other hand, I love having tons of monsters to use in my games. At least with the mythological creatures, I can Google them and go from there. But, I think between the two, I'd rather keep lots of monsters.

And at the end of the day, its a damned if you do, damned if you don't. If they remove monsters for more fluff, people will complain about the lack of monsters and Paizo trying to gouge them for a book with less monsters. If they make the typefont smaller, people will complain about the size of the font. Can't win 'em all.

Im a bit torn on the fluff vs number debate. I do love fluff and this bestiary seemed a little lacking in that. On the other hand, I love having tons of monsters to use in my games. At least with the mythological creatures, I can Google them and go from there. But, I think between the two, I'd rather keep lots of monsters.

And at the end of the day, its a damned if you do, damned if you don't. If they remove monsters for more fluff, people will complain about the lack of monsters and Paizo trying to gouge them for a book with less monsters. If they make the typefont smaller, people will complain about the size of the font. Can't win 'em all.

Truer words have not been spoken. And fluff can always be brought in from other sources, like a PDF fluff bundle, or as part of some other related content(player companions, campaign setting, and adventures).

Im a bit torn on the fluff vs number debate. I do love fluff and this bestiary seemed a little lacking in that. On the other hand, I love having tons of monsters to use in my games. At least with the mythological creatures, I can Google them and go from there. But, I think between the two, I'd rather keep lots of monsters.

And at the end of the day, its a damned if you do, damned if you don't. If they remove monsters for more fluff, people will complain about the lack of monsters and Paizo trying to gouge them for a book with less monsters. If they make the typefont smaller, people will complain about the size of the font. Can't win 'em all.

The good news on the other side is that we sometimes get cool extra new possibilities from copyfitting too. It's easy to focus on the few that were short and lose sight of the fact that most of the monsters didn't need to be cut, and sometimes they got more instead, even whole new mini-sections; for instance, I was able to add new info about both gremlins (originally ones that I had written as a freelancer) in copyfitting.

One of the things I like most about the new races is that Shabti got my group into the idea of playing an Afterlife campaign.

Mark. Can you name all the monsters from bestiary 5 that you worked on? Just curious! And you named a couple of cool ones already.

Mark. Can you name all the monsters from bestiary 5 that you worked on? Just curious! And you named a couple of cool ones already.

I did a development pass on every creature except the first one alphabetically (we have multiple designers check each monster), but I think you mean the ones I wrote as a freelancer? I've loved mythology since I was little (it's part of what got me into roleplaying), so I asked for a bunch of mythological creatures, though not entirely. I wrote both gremlins, the empyreal angel, the gancanagh, the cetus, the muse, the pyrausta, the water leaper, the anemos, the wysps, the aether elemental, and the tsukumogami.

Thanks for the quick answer!

I love the Hobskins, Empyreal Angel, the Pyrausta and the Tsukumogami.

The Nuno has grown on me, though I myself could do without the fungus visuals, the fluff and abilities of the Cetus are awesome, but I don't like the artwork, same with the Anemos, which I really enjoyed reading, but the visual artwork didn't do it for me.

I would have loved the Water Leaper if the Lamhygn (or something like that) wasn't in the book, I thought the Lamhyghyn was the Water Leaper in pathfinder lol. I still liked it though.

The Gancanagh, well I now use it as gentle/good creature myself as it kinda suit it, but i'm rather disappointed you did nothing with the addictive sweat, how come?

Wow, such a waste of space with this debate...
As for actual CONTENT: I did not care for any of the 0HD races, really. I may be in the minority, but I think we players have PLENTY of races to choose from.
Loved all the angels--not all of their art as the Choral's art was not cool at all. However, the Empyreal Angel?! If I have to face the Worldwound or evil outsiders in general, I want at least one of those at my side! Those are awa-some!
Am I the only one who got excited about the Choral Angel and Muse having SoundStriker Bard ranged attacks?! As I said before, my favorite Bard archetype now has potential mentors! So cool.
Loved the salamander-like fey...name escapes me at the moment and the book is nowhere near right now.
The 1st creature in the book, as someone already stated, makes an excellent Beholder-fill in.

I think once they reach 100 0HD races then I will be happy.

Thanks for the quick answer!

I love the Hobskins, Empyreal Angel, the Pyrausta and the Tsukumogami.

The Nuno has grown on me, though I myself could do without the fungus visuals, the fluff and abilities of the Cetus are awesome, but I don't like the artwork, same with the Anemos, which I really enjoyed reading, but the visual artwork didn't do it for me.

I would have loved the Water Leaper if the Lamhygn (or something like that) wasn't in the book, I thought the Lamhyghyn was the Water Leaper in pathfinder lol. I still liked it though.

The Gancanagh, well I now use it as gentle/good creature myself as it kinda suit it, but i'm rather disappointed you did nothing with the addictive sweat, how come?

Basically, we have a big list of monsters and different freelancers pick the ones they like. When I saw a CG azata gancanagh on the list, I thought it would be a fun chance to do a completely different take on it than the last gancanagh. It lost the addictive sweat as part of its new outlook; a creature that addicts people and causes them to pine away afterwards is CN edging toward CE at best. You can always use the other version of gancanagh for the nefarious sort; I'm fairly certain you have the 3pp product in question.

Both the water leaper and lamhygn are kind of froggy and come from the same myth (given that lamhygn is the Welsh name and all), but the leaper is a bit more similar to the Welsh legends while the lam is an awesome Abyssal spin on it. It's not the only time that we get two different monsters from the same myth; the cetus and ketesthius both arise from cetus mythology (in fact, the ketesthius was originally on the outline as ketos, just the Greek name for cetus, until we changed it to a name deriving from the ancient Greek for "to devour").

I don't get people who complain about the number of races in Pathfinder. Its not like you are forced to have them in your campaign. If someone wants to play something exotic in a campaign where that race logically doesn't belong then it is up to the GM to put the book down.

The more 0-HD races the better. That way when you start a campaign in an atypical setting(as in anything that is not the same boring stereotypical pseudo-Europe) you can have cool races that accentuate the setting.

I don't get people who complain about the number of races in Pathfinder. Its not like you are forced to have them in your campaign. If someone wants to play something exotic in a campaign where that race logically doesn't belong then it is up to the GM to put the book down.

The more 0-HD races the better. That way when you start a campaign in an atypical setting(as in anything that is not the same boring stereotypical pseudo-Europe) you can have cool races that accentuate the setting.

Well, each page spent on a 0HD race is a page not spent on something else. Maybe the people asking for fewer or no races are really just asking for more "other stuff". Granted, they might get their point across better if they specified what they want rather than what they don't want.

Basically, we have a big list of monsters and different freelancers pick the ones they like. When I saw a CG azata gancanagh on the list, I thought it would be a fun chance to do a completely different take on it than the last gancanagh. It lost the addictive sweat as part of its new outlook; a creature that addicts people and causes them to pine away afterwards is CN edging toward CE at best. You can always use the other version of gancanagh for the nefarious sort; I'm fairly certain you have the 3pp product in question.

Would that 3pp product be Rite Games Secret of the Masquerade Reveler?

And I've only looked at this book in the stories, but I love the amount of 'modern weirdness' we got in here. The Greys, the Reptoids, the Hopkinsville Goblins (Hobkin gremlins), Orang-pendak, even the Manasaputras seem to be from Blavatsky's Theosophy if I remember right. Really, all we need now are game write-ups for flying saucers.

And the sahkils are great. Outsiders who feed on fear? They and those daemons that kill with fear must be great pals.

I love the amarrok and vukodlak too. Wolf monsters will always delight me. And a great assortment of weirdo oozes this time around.

Mark Seifter wrote:

Basically, we have a big list of monsters and different freelancers pick the ones they like. When I saw a CG azata gancanagh on the list, I thought it would be a fun chance to do a completely different take on it than the last gancanagh. It lost the addictive sweat as part of its new outlook; a creature that addicts people and causes them to pine away afterwards is CN edging toward CE at best. You can always use the other version of gancanagh for the nefarious sort; I'm fairly certain you have the 3pp product in question.

Would that 3pp product be Rite Games Secret of the Masquerade Reveler?

And I've only looked at this book in the stories, but I love the amount of 'modern weirdness' we got in here. The Greys, the Reptoids, the Hopkinsville Goblins (Hobkin gremlins), Orang-pendak, even the Manasaputras seem to be from Blavatsky's Theosophy if I remember right. Really, all we need now are game write-ups for flying saucers.

And the sahkils are great. Outsiders who feed on fear? They and those daemons that kill with fear must be great pals.

I love the amarrok and vukodlak too. Wolf monsters will always delight me. And a great assortment of weirdo oozes this time around.

If they don't have an ability or reference to lights in the sky, then I will be a little less impressed. As for the vukodlak, it was originally in folklore(I think) a sort of mix between a vampire(in the drinking of blood and being undead) and a werewolf(taking on a wolfs form to feed during the early nights after its return from death). This I like with it being the vampiric wolflike servants of powerful vampires. I wonder if the ustalav vampire nobles use such beasts like mortals use hunting dogs, to hunt prey or criminals in their domain like deer or foxes.

All the different oozes are cool. I like the emotion oozes since they can mess just a tiny bit with the party dynamics, and they also are stronger around their relevent emotions. Having some in series of bottles/containers or even lurking in the walls. Other oozes include 2 that can shapeshift into another form, one that is somewhat sentient, and another that is simply a good mimic. And then there is the living mirage...yeah this is going to kill so many people without them realising.

Nightterror wrote:

Mark. Can you name all the monsters from bestiary 5 that you worked on? Just curious! And you named a couple of cool ones already.

I did a development pass on every creature except the first one alphabetically (we have multiple designers check each monster), but I think you mean the ones I wrote as a freelancer? I've loved mythology since I was little (it's part of what got me into roleplaying), so I asked for a bunch of mythological creatures, though not entirely. I wrote both gremlins, the empyreal angel, the gancanagh, the cetus, the muse, the pyrausta, the water leaper, the anemos, the wysps, the aether elemental, and the tsukumogami.

Surprised you didn't write the glaistig too. I had to do a double-take when I saw "terrakinesis", which didn't make sense until I saw the "combination of earth and plants". Shame you couldn't have used the wood element from the campaign setting.

Basically, we have a big list of monsters and different freelancers pick the ones they like. When I saw a CG azata gancanagh on the list, I thought it would be a fun chance to do a completely different take on it than the last gancanagh. It lost the addictive sweat as part of its new outlook; a creature that addicts people and causes them to pine away afterwards is CN edging toward CE at best. You can always use the other version of gancanagh for the nefarious sort; I'm fairly certain you have the 3pp product in question.

Both the water leaper and lamhygn are kind of froggy and come from the same myth (given that lamhygn is the Welsh name and all), but the leaper is a bit more similar to the Welsh legends while the lam is an awesome Abyssal spin on it. It's not the only time that we get two different monsters from the same myth; the cetus and ketesthius both arise from cetus mythology (in fact, the ketesthius was originally on the outline as ketos, just the Greek name for cetus, until we changed it to a name deriving from the ancient Greek for "to devour").

This is what I like about Paizo, they hear you, they chat with you, answer your question, mostly keep neutral and are overal cool people!

I love answers like these! It's awesome to learn more about the progress of how the book and its creatures were created and who made them and why. Keep it on!

And I had a suspicion that the Ketesthius and Cetus were related, but didn't know it for sure.

Because Wes posted a list with creatures + small description on his own webpage, there was a description about the cetus where it said that other creatures lived in their stomach or something like that, so I wondered why another creature ended up with that ability.

Too bad the Isonade didn't hold its ability to jump on the beach and "hook" landbound creatures with its tail-hooks from the beach.

Do you (or anyone else) know why they didn't went that road with the Isonade?

Mark Seifter wrote:

Nightterror wrote:

Mark. Can you name all the monsters from bestiary 5 that you worked on? Just curious! And you named a couple of cool ones already.

I did a development pass on every creature except the first one alphabetically (we have multiple designers check each monster), but I think you mean the ones I wrote as a freelancer? I've loved mythology since I was little (it's part of what got me into roleplaying), so I asked for a bunch of mythological creatures, though not entirely. I wrote both gremlins, the empyreal angel, the gancanagh, the cetus, the muse, the pyrausta, the water leaper, the anemos, the wysps, the aether elemental, and the tsukumogami.

Surprised you didn't write the glaistig too. I had to do a double-take when I saw "terrakinesis", which didn't make sense until I saw the "combination of earth and plants". Shame you couldn't have used the wood element from the campaign setting.

Actually, I am the one who added all the kineticist abilities to the glaistig during the development process, but I wasn't the original author on that one. Believe it or not, the glaistig was written long before Occult Origins, but I certainly support giving some phyto to the glaistig. To round out the kineticist critters, Linda is the one who created the chuspiki.

I like the idea of fey getting kineticist powers and would love to see more fey get such abilities.

One of my sons thought the Amarrok might have been inspired from the Never-ending Story. The more I look at the art and description, the more that makes sense.

Amarok = Inuit Mythology, same as Akhlut, Qallupilluk and Ijiraq.

They aren't friendly in the mythology, also not neutral, they are evil creatures that like the Basque Gaueko hunt for hunters that hunt in the night.

They don't bite your soul and they don't spare you however, they eat you alive after they terrorized your worst fears through the night.

Lord-of-Boggards wrote:

I don't get people who complain about the number of races in Pathfinder. Its not like you are forced to have them in your campaign. If someone wants to play something exotic in a campaign where that race logically doesn't belong then it is up to the GM to put the book down.

The more 0-HD races the better. That way when you start a campaign in an atypical setting(as in anything that is not the same boring stereotypical pseudo-Europe) you can have cool races that accentuate the setting.

Well, each page spent on a 0HD race is a page not spent on something else. Maybe the people asking for fewer or no races are really just asking for more "other stuff". Granted, they might get their point across better if they specified what they want rather than what they don't want.

To be fair, the same could be said about any kind of monster. Some people may want less fey or dragons and more undead or demons. Others may want less mythological creatures and more original monsters. Some may want less European monsters and more Japanese folklore monsters. Really, whenever Paizo makes a monster, theres going to be someone out there that thinks its space could have been used with another monster they want.

Ashram wrote:

Mark Seifter wrote:

Nightterror wrote:

Mark. Can you name all the monsters from bestiary 5 that you worked on? Just curious! And you named a couple of cool ones already.

I did a development pass on every creature except the first one alphabetically (we have multiple designers check each monster), but I think you mean the ones I wrote as a freelancer? I've loved mythology since I was little (it's part of what got me into roleplaying), so I asked for a bunch of mythological creatures, though not entirely. I wrote both gremlins, the empyreal angel, the gancanagh, the cetus, the muse, the pyrausta, the water leaper, the anemos, the wysps, the aether elemental, and the tsukumogami.

Surprised you didn't write the glaistig too. I had to do a double-take when I saw "terrakinesis", which didn't make sense until I saw the "combination of earth and plants". Shame you couldn't have used the wood element from the campaign setting.

Actually, I am the one who added all the kineticist abilities to the glaistig during the development process, but I wasn't the original author on that one. Believe it or not, the glaistig was written long before Occult Origins, but I certainly support giving some phyto to the glaistig. To round out the kineticist critters, Linda is the one who created the chuspiki.

Certainly waiting on a high level pyrokineticist and hydrokineticist monster. ;)

Also had a bit of a flashback when I saw the anemos, since in Golden Sun, the original civilization of the psychic air-users was called the Anemos. Golden Sun's adepts have a lot in common with kineticists.

Im a bit torn on the fluff vs number debate. I do love fluff and this bestiary seemed a little lacking in that. On the other hand, I love having tons of monsters to use in my games.

Same here (though I haven't seen Bestiary 5 yet, so I can't say about the inclusion of fluff.

But generally speaking, if I think about how I use monster books, it seems that I mainly use the bestiaries to look up the stats if they aren't printed in an official adventure. I really love big monster tomes, but I rarely get inspired by a stat block to use the monster instantly.

On the other hand, I have gotten more adventure and even campaign ideas out of the Classic Monsters revisited book then of all 4 bestiaries combined so far. As it stands, fluff immensely helps me in sparking my creativity. Same goes for the AP monster entries, old and new ecology articles and so on.

This said, a monster book format with less monsters and more fluff would probably very valuable to me (i.e. 200 instead of 300 critters, filling the then free space with fluff were needed). Would still mean, that I had tons of monsters to chose from, so I wouldn't feel the loss of those other monsters too hard.

But that's just me, and I can happily live with the fact that Paizo does it the way it is.

I like fey, outsiders (sakhil/manapasutras are the exceptions...not all that impressed there), dragons, undead, animals/magical beasts, aberrations... I really thought this book hit it out of the park with the fey, undead, outsiders (other than the two types mentioned--which means I loved the angels/agathions) and several aberrations and animals/magical beasts. I would be perfectly happy to see more of all those and no more player races.

I was happy we actually got more then 1 or 2 new elementals like the last two bestiaries.

Well, I see what people were talking about with the lack of flavor text. *eyes gate archon*

Well, I see what people were talking about with the lack of flavor text. *eyes gate archon*

The Gate Archon lost more than just flavor text.

I feel like it has plenty of abilities with 17th level spellcasting.

Guys, it's really not that hard to make up fluff for something called a GATE Archon.

Really.

Try this on for size?

Guys, it's really not that hard to make up fluff for something called a GATE Archon.

True. Also irrelevant.

I think my pet name for them will be 'Voorhees Angel'.

I really hope Paizo ignores all those people around the web and on Facebook that yell about too much bestiaries and too much useless beasties with the number increasing.

Just remember those are the same people that won't like the new Starwars movie just because you can't surpass the original.

Just keep making bestiaries every 2 years, to please the many people that DO enjoy them, and which aren't stuck with Owlbears, Orcs and Red Dragons.

Again, you cannot see past your prejudices. No one, to the best of my knowledge, has said that they do not enjoy them or that they are somehow inferior.

What I, and others, have said is X is something that would make us happy to see in the books. You know, the way that you say "gimme lots and lots of mythological creatures!"

People are allowed, unless we've changed the rules, the express a preference. While you and some others may want a ton of creatures and believe that you can just make up fluff for things -- and you can, sure, but is it the right fluff? -- others believe the opposite, that you can slap numbers to just about anything but if the story isn't right, who cares?

Those are two of dozens of ideas and preferences that people have about the book. People are allowed to express them, and I sincerely hope that Paizo listens to all their fans and doesn't ignore anyone. I seriously doubt you'd enjoy having your ideas and preferences ignored, eh?

I hope that Paizo continues to listen to all feedback and make informed decisions based on all available data.