Pathfinder Player Companion: Blood of the Beast (PFRPG)

Wouldn't half kitsune just be humans? .-.

.

Yeah, not before the half-halfling and the half-gnome!
And gnomelings!

Yeah, not before the half-halfling

Quarterling!

Ambrosia Slaad wrote:

Owen (or anyone else): Is there any chance this one particular player companion be bumped up to 64 pg/double-sized-ish? I don't think it'd be that difficult to find enough content to fill it, and I'd still be interested in grabbing it at the higher price bump.

I can quickly and easily saw no, but not because we don't think there's enough content for such a book. I could easily do 32 pages on each of these races.

***

But none of that is going to mean having a 32-page line kick out a 64-page book. We have a limit to how many pages we can develop, edit, and lay out in a month. Adding more pages here has to mean reducing the size of something else.

Not to mention we have subscribers, who expect to manage their budgets based on books of a given size coming out at roughly the same time every month. there are enough variables that impact that calculation without us adding one by sticking a 64-page product into a line that subscribers know is only 32 pages.

***

We DO look at whether a given subject or set of subjects are a good match, based on what we have said about them, what players and GMs are asking for, what product lines have room, and so on. And we are always examining whether the lines we are presenting are still meeting customer needs.

For the moment, this is the best match of what we want to do, what we can do, and what we think we won't lose money on.

In which way would that be different than Campaign Setting hardcovers?

I would also like to see half-catfolk, half-dwarves, halfling/gnome, elf/dwarf, etc. But this would be for a different book.

What about human-humans?

What about human-humans?

Well, so far we have exactly one trait for humans of mixed ethnicity (in People of the North), so there actually is a bit of a gap in that area.

I would also like to see half-catfolk, half-dwarves, halfling/gnome, elf/dwarf, etc. But this would be for a different book.

I think any of that would just complicate things. Not meaning to rain on your parade, but I doubt any of that gets into the game. Especially with all the clamor for still MORE PC races, not halves.

Ambrosia Slaad wrote:

Owen (or anyone else): Is there any chance this one particular player companion be bumped up to 64 pg/double-sized-ish? I don't think it'd be that difficult to find enough content to fill it, and I'd still be interested in grabbing it at the higher price bump.

I can quickly and easily saw no, but not because we don't think there's enough content for such a book. I could easily do 32 pages on each of these races.

Sadly,we have tons of evidence that a 32-page book on grippli won't sell well.

Honestly, I saw the list of races, and Grippli and Ratfolk where the only two that I actually wanted. I have absolutely no interest in either Kitsune or Catfolk, (though if there where a "dogfolk" race. . .)but am neutral on Tengu, Nagaji, and Vanara.

I'm considering not getting this one simply because it seems unavoidable that there will be nearly enough material (even if there are universal options), to make it worth it (for what I would want).

Hayato Ken wrote:

Yeah, not before the half-halfling

Quarterling!

I made these with the ARG guidelines once! They were Halflings that moved to the first world and became more and more like fey until Fey was their type instead of Humanoid(Halfling). They were also Tiny, cause they were half the size of normal Halflings. :)

I'd like to see rules for man-bear-pigs.

Owen K. C. Stephens wrote:

Ambrosia Slaad wrote:

Owen (or anyone else): Is there any chance this one particular player companion be bumped up to 64 pg/double-sized-ish? I don't think it'd be that difficult to find enough content to fill it, and I'd still be interested in grabbing it at the higher price bump.

I can quickly and easily saw no, but not because we don't think there's enough content for such a book. I could easily do 32 pages on each of these races.

Sadly,we have tons of evidence that a 32-page book on grippli won't sell well.

Honestly, I saw the list of races, and Grippli and Ratfolk where the only two that I actually wanted. I have absolutely no interest in either Kitsune or Catfolk, (though if there where a "dogfolk" race. . .)but am neutral on Tengu, Nagaji, and Vanara.

I'm considering not getting this one simply because it seems unavoidable that there will be nearly enough material (even if there are universal options), to make it worth it (for what I would want).

Dogfolk/Wolffolk, Bunnyfolk/Harefolk/Rabbitfolk, Turtlefolk, Spiderfolk, etc...

The Player Companion line will need a few hardcovers...

I would love a wolf, bunny, and turtle based races.

Ambrosia Slaad wrote:

Matrix Dragon wrote:

Caleb D'natin wrote:

Would a half kitusne be ppossible?

I don't see why not. It happened in at least one Japanese legend, and in Pathfinder terms shapeshifting makes it possible.

Well... Heroes of the Wild introduced alternate fey racial traits for non-fey races, and Blood of Shadow similarly added Shadowborn & Darkborn alternate racial traits. If Mr. Stephens is gauging interest, I too would like something similar to add a little kitsune into the core races.

True thought at the same time something like this would work best because technically in the original legends the child of a human and a kitsune was just a normal human but with greater spiritual powers then a normal human. No shapeshifting, no fox form or appearance.

So Fey bloodline sorceror

At the future of Paizo panel more then half of the questions were about this book, to the point that some of them said they might need to increase the page count. Don't take my word for confirmation but with this book of the developers can increase the page count that might be a good idea to go to a 64 page count for this one.

Owen K. C. Stephens wrote:

Ambrosia Slaad wrote:

Owen (or anyone else): Is there any chance this one particular player companion be bumped up to 64 pg/double-sized-ish? I don't think it'd be that difficult to find enough content to fill it, and I'd still be interested in grabbing it at the higher price bump.

I can quickly and easily saw no, but not because we don't think there's enough content for such a book. I could easily do 32 pages on each of these races.

Sadly,we have tons of evidence that a 32-page book on grippli won't sell well.

Honestly, I saw the list of races, and Grippli and Ratfolk where the only two that I actually wanted. I have absolutely no interest in either Kitsune or Catfolk, (though if there where a "dogfolk" race. . .)but am neutral on Tengu, Nagaji, and Vanara.

...

My thoughts exactly. Grippli, especially, could use some extensive background and additional racial options. Ratfolk got about 10 pages in the Monster Codex, and 2 more pages in Inner Sea Races. Grippli just got one paragraph in Inner Sea Races.

One.

Paragraph.

Although all the Ratfolk love in hindsight makes sense given they are going to be a core Starfinder race.

zergtitan wrote:

True thought at the same time something like this would work best because technically in the original legends the child of a human and a kitsune was just a normal human but with greater spiritual powers then a normal human. No shapeshifting, no fox form or appearance.

So Fey bloodline sorceror

Technically, the Kitsune really should have a Spirit Sorcerer Bloodline. They don't actually have any ties to the fey, but it is the closest thematic thing that we have right now.

I can go for a kami bloodline ^.^

A kami or spirit sorcerer bloodline would be interesting.

djones wrote:

zergtitan wrote:

True thought at the same time something like this would work best because technically in the original legends the child of a human and a kitsune was just a normal human but with greater spiritual powers then a normal human. No shapeshifting, no fox form or appearance.

So Fey bloodline sorceror

Technically, the Kitsune really should have a Spirit Sorcerer Bloodline. They don't actually have any ties to the fey, but it is the closest thematic thing that we have right now.

I dunno, they speak sylvan, so I presume there's some connection. And yokai hunter considers aberration, dragon, fey, magical beast, outsider (native), and undead (incorporeal) to be yokai for it, so it's probably suggestive that a yokai bloodline would most likely be aberrant, draconic, fey, or undead.

That said, I would love to see a kami bloodline for sorcerers and bloodragers from Paizo, as well as a race of kami-descended (for the moment, I generally have to use reflavored aasimar), but somehow I doubt this will be the book that covers them.

Matrix Dragon wrote:

djones wrote:

zergtitan wrote:

True thought at the same time something like this would work best because technically in the original legends the child of a human and a kitsune was just a normal human but with greater spiritual powers then a normal human. No shapeshifting, no fox form or appearance.

So Fey bloodline sorceror

Technically, the Kitsune really should have a Spirit Sorcerer Bloodline. They don't actually have any ties to the fey, but it is the closest thematic thing that we have right now.

I dunno, they speak sylvan, so I presume there's some connection. And yokai hunter considers aberration, dragon, fey, magical beast, outsider (native), and undead (incorporeal) to be yokai for it, so it's probably suggestive that a yokai bloodline would most likely be aberrant, draconic, fey, or undead.

That said, I would love to see a kami bloodline for sorcerers and bloodragers from Paizo, as well as a race of kami-descended (for the moment, I generally have to use reflavored aasimar), but somehow I doubt this will be the book that covers them.

In the Golarion setting (as opposed to Generic setting), kisune don't actually know sylvan. Their starting languages are Tian and Senzar. Senzar is the language of the Spirits and Kami in Tian Xia ;)

Luthorne wrote:

Matrix Dragon wrote:

djones wrote:

zergtitan wrote:

True thought at the same time something like this would work best because technically in the original legends the child of a human and a kitsune was just a normal human but with greater spiritual powers then a normal human. No shapeshifting, no fox form or appearance.

So Fey bloodline sorceror

Technically, the Kitsune really should have a Spirit Sorcerer Bloodline. They don't actually have any ties to the fey, but it is the closest thematic thing that we have right now.

I dunno, they speak sylvan, so I presume there's some connection. And yokai hunter considers aberration, dragon, fey, magical beast, outsider (native), and undead (incorporeal) to be yokai for it, so it's probably suggestive that a yokai bloodline would most likely be aberrant, draconic, fey, or undead.

That said, I would love to see a kami bloodline for sorcerers and bloodragers from Paizo, as well as a race of kami-descended (for the moment, I generally have to use reflavored aasimar), but somehow I doubt this will be the book that covers them.

In the Golarion setting (as opposed to Generic setting), kisune don't actually know sylvan. Their starting languages are Tian and Senzar. Senzar is the language of the Spirits and Kami in Tian Xia ;)

Hmm, so they do, I'd completely forgotten about that until I checked in my copy of Dragon Empires Gazetteer. However, it's still a secondary language, and in Dragon Empires Gazetteer, it says about Sylvan that most of the creatures that one would expect to speak it instead speak Senzar...which presumably means that fey creatures also speak it. So it's not impossible that kitsune have some ties to fey as a type of yokai...

Perhaps kitsune were originally created by the kamis and fey as intermediaries/agents between their spheres of concern and the mortal world, especially the fast-reproducing humanity?

Perhaps kitsune were originally created by the kamis and fey as intermediaries/agents between their spheres of concern and the mortal world, especially the fast-reproducing humanity?

It could be, though Daikitsu is supposed to be venerated as the mother of the kitsune race...though that's not necessarily incompatible, if she was the first created, or perhaps the first uplifted...? The origins of kitsune are definitely interesting to ponder, though in all fairness, the same is true for humanity in the Golarion setting...what with the alghollthu, xiomorn, gods, and potential titan to giant to human descent, amongst the other theories and hints floating around there. And they've been seriously mysterious about halflings, too...

Alex has spoken before about how he is not a fan of feats that are race specific without a really good rational for being so limited. In view of that, I would like to suggest that interesting race traits be remembered this time around, because they can be easily flavor-based. I do hope for interesting feats also. (I'm still in mourning that Wayangs didn't get more new race-specific options in Blood of Shadows.)

I really like racial feats, they are one of the few feat types in Pathfinder that I like. In fact I am very disappointed in how few that have come out in the recent years. I also have always felt that they deserve there own category subtype/section like metamagic or teamwork feats

Owen K. C. Stephens wrote:

Ambrosia Slaad wrote:

Owen (or anyone else): Is there any chance this one particular player companion be bumped up to 64 pg/double-sized-ish? I don't think it'd be that difficult to find enough content to fill it, and I'd still be interested in grabbing it at the higher price bump.

I can quickly and easily saw no, but not because we don't think there's enough content for such a book. I could easily do 32 pages on each of these races.

***

But none of that is going to mean having a 32-page line kick out a 64-page book. We have a limit to how many pages we can develop, edit, and lay out in a month. Adding more pages here has to mean reducing the size of something else.

Not to mention we have subscribers, who expect to manage their budgets based on books of a given size coming out at roughly the same time every month. there are enough variables that impact that calculation without us adding one by sticking a 64-page product into a line that subscribers know is only 32 pages.

***

We DO look at whether a given subject or set of subjects are a good match, based on what we have said about them, what players and GMs are asking for, what product lines have room, and so on. And we are always examining whether the lines we are presenting are still meeting customer needs.

For the moment, this is the best match of what we want to do, what we can do, and what we think we won't lose money on.

In which way would that be different than Campaign Setting hardcovers?

I do wonder why the limited 32-page count myself. There are just several questions posed for why? For example

1) Is it a budget thing? Does this mean Paizo is just breaking even or choosing the safest routes?
2) Is it to avoid bloat? (which is a proven gaming myth to begin with)
3) Why not a bi-monthly subject? 64 page on one topic bi-monthly seems more manageable than twelve miniscule amount of space spent on large topics.

It could be a budget thing for the sake of subscribers. Subscribers to the Player Companion line are expecting a certain amount of material each month for a certain price. Doubling the page count would require that Paizo either increase the price of the Player Companion for that month or sell that month's Player Companion at a loss.

The Campaign setting line already has this problem to a certain extent, as the price goes up when they have a hardback.

Hoping we'll get subraces of the Kitsune. :D

I hope there will be a way to have 1000 years old nine-tailed kitsunes. Short-lived kitsune make my head hurt.

Nagaji subraces would be awesome.

The small numbers of pages also doesn't seem like it will allow for a description of realms and societies.

I hope there will be a way to have 1000 years old nine-tailed kitsunes. Short-lived kitsune make my head hurt.

Nagaji subraces would be awesome.

The small numbers of pages also doesn't seem like it will allow for a description of realms and societies.

Yea, short lived kitsune hurts my head as well. One of the main things about kitsune (in legends) is that they are just foxes and nothing special until they are at least 100 years old.

Hoping we'll get subraces of the Kitsune. :D

Alex Agunas has you covered with 3pp

I'm pleased with how excited everyone is for this book, but I would like to post a friendly reminder to everyone that if a bakery sells a limited quantity of your favorite flavor of pie, then you won't get them to bake more of those pies by boycotting the bakery/the pie flavor.

And it sounds like many people in this thread want more pie.

Berselius wrote:

Hoping we'll get subraces of the Kitsune. :D

Alex Augunas has you covered with 3pp

Shameless plug, I'm actually running a Kickstarter for a book that'll give a lot of information on the "Dynastic" races currently. The Kickstarter just funded, and it has information about a lot of the flavor content that people are asking about here. For instance, one of the stretch goals adds a bonus article about kyubi, which is the book's word for "kitsune with two or more tails." That article includes notes about how every magic tail that a kitsune acquires extends her life; I think its something like +30 years to Middle Age, Old Age, and Venerable Age, and +10 years Maximum Age per tail. (I'm currently getting ready for work and don't have the file open in front of me.)

And yeah, I did kitsune ethnicities based on real-world fox species for kitsune and nagaji subraces based on the different kinds of naga. (My notes for slimey nagaji are pretty gross but amazing.)

Berselius wrote:

Hoping we'll get subraces of the Kitsune. :D

Alex Agunas has you covered with 3pp

Okay, let me rephrase that, I hope PAIZO PUBLISHING gives us subraces for the Kitsune in the official rules of this upcoming manual.

djones wrote:

Berselius wrote:

Hoping we'll get subraces of the Kitsune. :D

Alex Agunas has you covered with 3pp

Okay, let me rephrase that, I hope PAIZO PUBLISHING gives us subraces for the Kitsune in the official rules of this upcoming manual.

Given this has to cover seven races, I kind of doubt it...

djones wrote:

Berselius wrote:

Hoping we'll get subraces of the Kitsune. :D

Alex Agunas has you covered with 3pp

Okay, let me rephrase that, I hope PAIZO PUBLISHING gives us subraces for the Kitsune in the official rules of this upcoming manual.

Subraces seem really unlikely under the space budget. We've gotten subraces, but only for things with lots of different sources of heritage and in single-race books that have a lot more than four pages to devote to the race. That said, I'm sure they'll be doing something pretty cool with that space.

I just hope there will be plenty of racial feats and alternate racial traits.

Is there any chance that this will finally make the vanara PFS legal? I had so much fun playing a vanara drunken master monk in a non-PFS campaign...

And kitsune - when I started reading Ultimate Intrigue, I felt that kitsune would be a wonderful match.

Is there any chance that this will finally make the vanara PFS legal? I had so much fun playing a vanara drunken master monk in a non-PFS campaign...

And kitsune - when I started reading Ultimate Intrigue, I felt that kitsune would be a wonderful match.

Kitsune are already legal in Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild.

We've already announced which races are being added to the Always Available list this season, but there's certainly a chance that we'll see vanara as a more easily accessible race option in the near future.

Though with so many races in this book I wonder how much love you can give each and still make people happy.

Though with so many races in this book I wonder how much love you can give each and still make people happy.

Four pages each, plus four pages of "padding", like the index and so on. That assumes even distribution and no overlap.

Unless you literally meant how much love they can give each, in which case we're going to have to start quantifying that.

Pagan priest wrote:

Is there any chance that this will finally make the vanara PFS legal? I had so much fun playing a vanara drunken master monk in a non-PFS campaign...

And kitsune - when I started reading Ultimate Intrigue, I felt that kitsune would be a wonderful match.

Kitsune are already legal in Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild.

We've already announced which races are being added to the Always Available list this season, but there's certainly a chance that we'll see vanara as a more easily accessible race option in the near future.

Oops. Typing while distracted, I already knew that kitsune were legal. Maybe if I had been paying more attention to what was typing, I could have said that a little better.

I am ready to murder anyone you wish me to in exchange of 4 pages on monkey goblins plz.

Though with so many races in this book I wonder how much love you can give each and still make people happy.

I guess you'll find out in October!

One thing to stress—if you want more things done with *any* of these races, the best thing you (or anyone, not just Dragon78) can do is be passionate with the product after its release. Talk about it, be excited, post LOTS of reviews, and buy a print copy. Talk about what you don't like too if there's anything, but essentially if the product were a tweet, you want it to be "trending." You're only going to get more if there's a perceived need for it, after all.

Dragon78 wrote:

Though with so many races in this book I wonder how much love you can give each and still make people happy.

I guess you'll find out in October!

One thing to stress—if you want more things done with *any* of these races, the best thing you (or anyone, not just Dragon78) can do is be passionate with the product after its release. Talk about it, be excited, post LOTS of reviews, and buy a print copy. Talk about what you don't like too if there's anything, but essentially if the product were a tweet, you want it to be "trending." You're only going to get more if there's a perceived need for it, after all.

You mentioned you're not part of nor do you want to be associated with the furry fandom, which makes me wonder if anyone at Paizo is in fact a furry ( please note I have several friends who are furries and they're all nice people. A little weird at times but hey we are all weird at times so no big deal right?).

I'll be getting this via PDF as that's the only way I can afford these books. :(

Anyhow, I'm actually sold on this due to the kitsune, catfolk, and ratfolk! I'm actually playing a kitsune samurai and a catfolk fire elemental sorceress, and I hope this gives us some more options to play the other beastfolk races as well.

Hm...maybe this should have been called 'Blood of the Beastfolk'.

I hope they update the cover art and description soon.

You mentioned you're not part of nor do you want to be associated with the furry fandom, which makes me wonder if anyone at Paizo is in fact a furry ( please note I have several friends who are furries and they're all nice people. A little weird at times but hey we are all weird at times so no big deal right?).

As far as I know of, no.

I'll be getting this via PDF as that's the only way I can afford these books. :(

Listen, support is support. All of it is good. If you can't buy the book, oh well. Talk it up. Talk up the races. Let the choir of your praises echo on high to the office of Erik Mona himself!

Anyhow, I'm actually sold on this due to the kitsune, catfolk, and ratfolk! I'm actually playing a kitsune samurai and a catfolk fire elemental sorceress, and I hope this gives us some more options to play the other beastfolk races as well.

I would expect this to be very option-oriented. Its a Player Companion, and the line has evolved to be more about player options than a player's place in the campaign setting.

I can only speak for myself, but I'm personally hoping that this leads to a future product that is to Inner Sea Races as Inner Sea Faiths was to Inner Sea Gods—a small scale look at a few uncommon races that essentially gives those races the full "Inner Sea Races" treatment. I don't have any influence over the product schedule at all, but I figure if I can get the community to sing its praises over this book, then maybe that'll happen someday!

I hope they update the cover art and description soon.

I would settle for the cover art. <3

I kinda miss the D and D hengeokai. They were the neatest races IMO of the Oriental Adventures campaign.