|
Well, I'm not suggesting anything, and I see the point in not risking a lawsuit. On the other hand, for me and my group, these monsters are what make D&D what it is, so from a pure consumer's perspective, I'd be great if they had a place in a Pathfinder Bestiary.
Not a though deal, anyway, as we can always use the 3.x MM version of them with Pathfinder without much hassle.
|
On the other hand, for me and my group, these monsters are what make D&D what it is, so from a pure consumer's perspective, I'd be great if they had a place in a Pathfinder Bestiary.
YMMV, but In 20 years of playing D&D, I've not yet encountered a Beholder or Mindflayer, including playing pretty solidly at conventions for the last five years.
I have encountered a DisplacerBeast once.
Yes, these creatures are clearly iconic to D&D, however their absence from the game is not a deal-breaker for me.
Hopefully their absence will give space for entirely *new* classics to emerge from Pathfinder, and I think we're already experiencing some of these through the Bestiary pages at the back of Runelords and Crimson Throne.
Not a though deal, anyway, as we can always use the 3.x MM version of them with Pathfinder without much hassle.
Absolutely.
|
|
Taking the Displacer Beast as an example, Displacement is a spell-like ability that could be templated on pretty much any creature.
Some time ago on WotC's site, they presented a new species of DB-like creature - the GravBeast. Instead of having displacement powers, it could manipulate gravity within close radius of itself. If I recall, it was described as resembling a deep-blue six-legged snow leopard, rather than a panther.
I thought this was really cool, kind of like the alternate species descriptions we often see at the end of Pathfinder Bestiary pages.
Though I'm not suggesting Pathfinder beats even resemble WotC's iconics this closely. I just want to demonstrate how a different creature could fill a similar niche, or even a different niche, but achieve similar notoriety.
Creative Director
|
Yeah... I'm not interested in faking a beholder or a mind flayer, really. There's enough monsters out there without having to get hung up on the ones that WotC decided to keep to themselves, to be honest.
In some cases, actually... there already ARE monsters in the SRD that can easily fill the role of some of those, though. A couple of examples that come to mind that we're already moving on for the Darklands stuff in Second Darkness and the Into the Darklands book...
Intellect Devourer: This thing is actually a PERFECT mind flayer replacement. His name even more or less means the same thing. He's an iconic guy from the old days. He's got eerie mind powers and he hurts your brain.
Kuo-Toa: These are actually my FAVORITE of the monsters WotC chose to retain. But guess what? Check out the skum! They're fishy humanoid creatures too, and they have a PRE-MADE REASON to be in the underdark; they're aboleth slaves & minions!
|
Kuo-Toa: These are actually my FAVORITE of the monsters WotC chose to retain. But guess what? Check out the skum! They're fishy humanoid creatures too, and they have a PRE-MADE REASON to be in the underdark; they're aboleth slaves & minions!
Skum also have standard HD advancement to become large, as my current players are learning to their woe.
:)
Ultimately speaking...I'll be happy with whatever monster goodness you throw our way. Paizo has already proven over and over again that they (not Godzilla) are the King of Monsters!
Because Godzilla is actually the Queen after all.
Quick question how many of the monsters in the monster manual not open license?
In the core MM: the beholder and gauth, carrion crawler, displacer beast, githyanki, githzerai, kuo-toa, mind flayer, 5 slaads, umber hulk, and the 3 yuan'ti are all missing from the SRD.
You could probably ditch some of the lesser-used monsters/monsters that wouldn't fit into golarion so well. A few examples (only one type of Sphinx, the rest could go into a PF write-up; Athach, Formians, Magmins) could go, and be replaced with Golarion monsters.
And I really really want to see Classic Undead Revisited ^_^
No SRD monster left behind!
aka: We won't be ditching any of the SRD monsters at all in the Pathfinder Monster Book. Every "lesser-used" monster in there is someone else's favorite or campaign lynch-pin, after all...
Thank you SO much for saying that. I was worried you would cut some of the monsters.
Adding is good...Removing is bad. :)
There's a PDF product out there (don't know wheter it saw print) that has a variation for the critters that were left out of the SRD. The guy who made the PDF hasn't been sued by wizards, either (but then again, it's ari marmell, and he's one of their favourite people now, and works for them any everything.)
Also, in the advanced bestiary, there are a couple of templates that emulate some of the critters, and they could be used easily.
So there's precedent for that sort of thing, and if they wanted to do it, they could.
But I also agree that Paizo can come up with better stuff. If wizards doesn't want to share, let them keep it.
In my perfect world, there would be three types of monster books for Pathfinder.
1) A core monster book that updates all the SRD monsters and perhaps a bunch of other 3.5 open monsters into one big book. This would have 2 monsters per page (one per column of text, or 1 monster per page for really complex monsters), probably with pretty dense and/or small text and about as much flavor as the 3.5 MM has. This would become the core monster reference book, and we'd likely do ecology-style writeups of monsters from here in Pathfinder now and then (or in book category #3; see below). This book would be super big, too. As many pages as I can get away with, in other words. The monsters in here would be world-neutral, just as in the current MM.
2) Pathfinder Campaign Setting Monster Books that use a format similar to the bestiary at the end of each Pathfinder Adventure Path (1 monster per 2 pages). The monsters in here would be Golarion-specific, and would probaly include a lot of reprints from Pathfinder and the modules.
3) Lots of Classic Monsters Revisited style books that cover various types of monsters. Again; these would be Golarion-specific, to the same extent that Classic Monsters was.
NOTE: No such books are on any schedules yet. But that's my personal take on one possible route we might take.
This would be my perfect world to.
I honestly cant think of a better set up.
One big MM that is the SRD plus a lot of bonus monsters in it, occasional Pathfinder Monster Books, and occasional Monster Revisited Books.
Its perfect. If theres no planing stages on this yet then get crackin! :)
|
I certainly hope not. Classic Monsters is a good reference book, but we need a 3P Monster Manual. Not 3-4 books to replace one core book.
To be honest I would rather have fewer monsters done with a focus on quality entries. I only use about 30-40% of the MM content as it is. I don't know about 3-4 pages per monster but for certain creatures it makes sense.
Illithids I could live without, and I never cared for Displacer Beasts, but it just wouldn't be D&D without beholders! I know PRPG is technically not D&D, but it is based on the 3e ruleset, so its as close as we can get these days.
Besides, if you really wanted to do something similar looking to an Illithid (minus the psionics), Runequest had a creature called a 'Walktapi', which was just a large, hulking humanoid with an Octopus for a head. As long as you don't give it any mental powers, I'm sure it doesn't break any rules (and maybe it can eat people, and have an especial fondness for brains).
Beholders, on the other hand, are tough not to vilolate. There was a smaller version in the movie Big trouble in Little China, but D&D has similar creatures as well. I think if you got rid of the eyestalks and called it a "Floating Maw" it could be doable, and then the eyestalks can go to something else (I'm picturing something along the lines of a McDonalds Frenchfry Goblin - just a pair of skinny legs and a big head).
I'll miss the real Beholder though - who could forget the Dragon cover with the female Beholder, entitled "Beauty lies in the eyes of the...". He's iconic... damn shame he can't be used.
To be honest I would rather have fewer monsters done with a focus on quality entries. I only use about 30-40% of the MM content as it is.
Doesn't help the rest of us, though.
|
|
Illithids I could live without, and I never cared for Displacer Beasts, but it just wouldn't be D&D without beholders! I know PRPG is technically not D&D, but it is based on the 3e ruleset, so its as close as we can get these days.
Well seeing as Illithids are essentially stolen from the Cthulu mythos I'm not sure how WotC can claim them as corporate identity.
The Gith creatures won't be missed too much, but the thri kreen/ bug dudes were cool. It's strange that so many of the "corporate identity" creatures are Psionic considering WotC treated Psionics like the redheaded step child.
I'll miss the real Beholder though - who could forget the Dragon cover with the female Beholder, entitled "Beauty lies in the eyes of the...". He's iconic... damn shame he can't be used.
This is a shame indeed. You can of course use the 3.5 beholder from the MM but it would be nice if it could be brought into the PfRPG fold.
-- Dennis
|
Well seeing as Illithids are essentially stolen from the Cthulu mythos I'm not sure how WotC can claim them as corporate identity.
One, "humanoid with tentacled, cephalopodish head" isn't unique or even original to H.P. Lovecraft's fiction.
Two, Cthulhu and Illithids have more things different than they have things in common.
Three, the story "The Call of Cthulhu" went public domain last year, if I recall copyright law, Lovecraft's death, and Arkham House's legal shenannigans correctly.
Four, ignoring points one and two above, if Chaosium never sued TSR over Mind Flayers, that horse is long out of the barn.
Five, Lovecraft never trademarked any of his IP, and this really is a trademark issue.
|
|
Doesn't help the rest of us, though.
To be honest I would rather have fewer monsters done with a focus on quality entries. I only use about 30-40% of the MM content as it is.
Well my assumption is that I am representative. If no one uses creatures like the Lillend, Yrthak, Locathah, or Ghaele then maybe they shouldn't bother converting them. By all means if they are used then keep them. I would bet that most DMs couldn't even describe 2 of those creatures in rough terms without looking at the book.
If creatures are used then by all means keep them. I'm just suggesting that the useless bits get cut. I don't know which specific creatures are "useless", maybe every single MM creature has a fan in which case keep them all. But I would rather see a little more space dedicated to upping the quality of entries for the more commonly used monsters than have just a ton of stat blocks for creatures I will never use.
A simple survey when they are developing their Monster supplement would probably be sufficient to root out any stinkers.
-- Dennis
|
Creative Director
|
To be honest I would rather have fewer monsters done with a focus on quality entries. I only use about 30-40% of the MM content as it is. I don't know about 3-4 pages per monster but for certain creatures it makes sense.
I suspect that the majority of GMs only use part of the MM. The tricky part is that they all use DIFFERENT parts, so monsters one GM never uses are ones that other GMs can't do without.
In any case, I'm pretty sure we can do lots of monsters AND have quality entries. And that gives us LOTS of topics in Pathfinder and Classic Monster type books to expand upon! :)
|
Creative Director
|
Well my assumption is that I am representative. If no one uses creatures like the Lillend, Yrthak, Locathah, or Ghaele then maybe they shouldn't bother converting them.
Taking these four monsters as examples... I have used all four in my campaigns. Lillends and ghaeles are actually among my favorite good-guy monsters, in fact. There's a key NPC who's a Lillend in the Age of Worms campaign I wrote, and one of the more important NPCs who's appeared in all three Dungeon adventure paths was a Ghaele. In my home-brew campaign, one of my players is a druid who's picked out the exact right feats and stuff that the Yrthak is his favorite wildshape form.
Locathahs I can live without, though. But I'm sure someone out there can't.
|
3) Lots of Classic Monsters Revisited style books that cover various types of monsters. Again; these would be Golarion-specific, to the same extent that Classic Monsters was.
James,
I'd like to say that Classic Monsters Revisited is one of the best supplements I've seen in a long time and I encourage Paizo to put out more like it.
After running my unsuspecting players through a late night adventure involving a mental asylum, a string of unsolved murders, and a pair of ... I believe they are called ... Slate Stalkers, the terrified look on the faces of four experienced gamers when they realized they had been fighting bugbears the entire time was priceless.
In fact, Classic Monsters Revisited has earned its place in my "books I lug to gaming" pile. Between the insane goblins, skull-jig dancing ogres, pack-animal gnolls and bugbears-as-bogeyman even the most experienced players in my group are going into our Rise of the Runelords campaign as wide-eyed as the newbies.
You all did a great job on this one.
Thank you,
Jason
|
|
I suspect that the majority of GMs only use part of the MM. The tricky part is that they all use DIFFERENT parts, so monsters one GM never uses are ones that other GMs can't do without.
In any case, I'm pretty sure we can do lots of monsters AND have quality entries. And that gives us LOTS of topics in Pathfinder and Classic Monster type books to expand upon! :)
It's true ... when I was running my Thay/Wizards' Reach/Mulhorand campaign, I used monsters I could picture in my image of a Sinbad/Harryhausen movie. So skeletons, zombies, krenshar, satyrs, nilshai, minotaurs, centaurs, kenku, orcs, ogres, and the like. I purposely stayed away from goblins and other standard fantasy.
Now I'm running a home-brew campaign in a very gothic german setting, so monsters that would be home in my image of Van Helsing or Warhammer Fantasy are being used, so *no* krenshar, minotaurs, orcs, centaurs, etc. Now I'm using githyanki, werewolves, vampires (nosferatu!), goblins, neogi, umber hulks, trolls, ogrekin, giant spiders, etc...
|
|
For my part, the bigger the core monster book, the better. Add in everything from the SRD, everything we can from the Necromancer products, everything from the Bestiaries, etc. It needs to be in hardcover though... that's one thing that Wizards got right for its books, for sure. Softcovers are too easy to damage, and I'm reasonably sure I've never seen a bindered MM that wasn't at least halfway destroyed, including inside game stores.
I like the idea of an annual monster book as well... I loved the old TSR Monsterous Compendium annuals, and the thing I looked forward to the most from Wizards was the yearly monster book. (Still annoyed we never got Fiend Folio II...)
I'm genuinely surprised that nobody's suggested a quarterly Pathfinder-style magazine release for new monsters, collected into a hardcover every year...
I'm genuinely surprised that nobody's suggested a quarterly Pathfinder-style magazine release for new monsters, collected into a hardcover every year...
I did, but it was in the Kobold Quarterly thread. Pathfinder Society Quarterly. But not just monsters. :)
The Gith creatures won't be missed too much
Actually, I'm sure they could even go and make monsters named githyanki. The name isn't originally from D&D, but from George R. R. Martin and his novel Dying of the Light. Those githyanki apparently had psychic powers and were also called soulsucks. They were a slave race there, too.
So a psionic humanoid race from the Great Beyond called githzerei would be possible I'd say.
If creatures are used then by all means keep them. I'm just suggesting that the useless bits get cut. I don't know which specific creatures are "useless", maybe every single MM creature has a fan in which case keep them all.
I don't know, either. I guess no one knows.
As for Mind Flayers: I'm sure they could create squid-headed, telepathic aberrations in PF. I suspec they could even call them Mind Flayers. They just couldn't use the name Illithid, and maybe not duplicate the exact stats.
But I guess a medium-sized Cthulhu-lookalike with inherent psionic abilities like a psion of his HD (similar to nymphs with their inborn druid magic) would be totally doable.
Ultimately speaking...I'll be happy with whatever monster goodness you throw our way. Paizo has already proven over and over again that they (not Godzilla) are the King of Monsters!
Because Godzilla is actually the Queen after all.
First off Godzilla is male! Nevermind about that Amrican movie.
Seconed, anyone have some stats on Godzilla, love to have him attack Rokugon.
Just use the Terrasque.
FR had GIANT octopus-headed creatures called Krakentua (something like a hundred feet tall!) They also had a group of monsters known as Gargantuas - one type was identical to Godzilla, another to Mothra, and the last was a King-Kong wannabe.
There were also Giant island-sized turtles in Zakhara (FR/Al-Qadim), and a flying variety of that in Spelljammer called Gammoroids... I kid you not. The Horde campaign set also had a King Ghidra look-alike known as a Dzalmus (Dragon #349)
Lots of Kaiju-style monsters floating around in D&D, and most of them are in FR (probably because they liked to attack Kara-Tur).
I just remembered another psionic squid-head - The Ood from Dr, Who!
So it looks like we can use just about everything EXCEPT Beholders.
Hmmmm... maybe a giant flying brain with tentacles that shoot various rays... and maybe the tentacles can have eyes and mouths on them as well? I'm just wondering how close something can come before its considered infringment.
Found a pic of the little ugly - funny, I don't remember him having two eyes on his face (the eyestalks are kinda hard to see there). I'm gonna need to get a copy of this flick now - I haven't seen it in years.
|
Creative Director
|
Ultimately speaking...I'll be happy with whatever monster goodness you throw our way. Paizo has already proven over and over again that they (not Godzilla) are the King of Monsters!
Because Godzilla is actually the Queen after all.
First off Godzilla is male! Nevermind about that Amrican movie.
Seconed, anyone have some stats on Godzilla, love to have him attack Rokugon.
Fair Warning...
Too much talk about the Devlin/Emerich Godzilla movie will spur me into a frothing maniacal rampage that only exposure to PROPER Godzilla movies can cure. It'd be like the Incredible Hulk being bitten by a werewolf, and then being flown to Jupiter when there was like 30 full moons at once. It'd be bad.
Fair Warning...Too much talk about the Devlin/Emerich Godzilla movie will spur me into a frothing maniacal rampage that only exposure to PROPER Godzilla movies can cure. It'd be like the Incredible Hulk being bitten by a werewolf, and then being flown to Jupiter when there was like 30 full moons at once. It'd be bad.
Hey now! The American Godzilla was a fine movie!
...for a hokey remake of "Beast from Twenty-Thousand Fathoms". As a Godzilla movie, though? Hell no.
Too much talk about the Devlin/Emerich Godzilla movie will spur me into a frothing maniacal rampage
No kidding. Leave it to Hollywood to turn a frikkin Godzilla movie into a damn love story. Nothing against love, but there are other topics for movies. Like HUGE FRIKKIN MONSTERS, for example.
Let's hope they never get their hands on Brain Dead or Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The thought of a guy with a running, bloody chainsaw throwing smouldering looks at some chick would make me swear of media forever. ;-)
|
Have you ever seriously considered printing a monster manual with maybe more pages, but also with BIGGER pages. Is there any industry related reason why all RPG books seem to be the same size as the 3.5 D&D core books? Something to do with the dimensions of shop shelves, for example, or what size bookcases most people have in their homes?
It's like when you used to build something in shop. If you are using standard lengths and sizes of wood to build something, you do it in less time. Paizo formats and sizes are standard for their class. As a result, their costs are minimalized. If they step outside of the set sizes, this requires different press configurations, and potentially specialty paper orders to feed the configuration.
I think it would rock to have a big old tome to play with, but I think the costs of printing would drive the price point out of reach.
Just use the Terrasque.
FR had GIANT octopus-headed creatures called Krakentua (something like a hundred feet tall!) They also had a group of monsters known as Gargantuas - one type was identical to Godzilla, another to Mothra, and the last was a King-Kong wannabe.
There were also Giant island-sized turtles in Zakhara (FR/Al-Qadim), and a flying variety of that in Spelljammer called Gammoroids... I kid you not. The Horde campaign set also had a King Ghidra look-alike known as a Dzalmus (Dragon #349)
Lots of Kaiju-style monsters floating around in D&D, and most of them are in FR (probably because they liked to attack Kara-Tur).
I just remembered another psionic squid-head - The Ood from Dr, Who!
So it looks like we can use just about everything EXCEPT Beholders.
Hmmmm... maybe a giant flying brain with tentacles that shoot various rays... and maybe the tentacles can have eyes and mouths on them as well? I'm just wondering how close something can come before its considered infringment.
Thanks for the suggestions, but what books are they in. I have Issue #349, on the Hoard, and yes it would work, but not sure of the others. I only have 3rd FR stuff, and if I'm not mistaken most of it didn't go any furthern east then then Thay.
|
Creative Director
|
Fair Warning...Too much talk about the Devlin/Emerich Godzilla movie will spur me into a frothing maniacal rampage that only exposure to PROPER Godzilla movies can cure. It'd be like the Incredible Hulk being bitten by a werewolf, and then being flown to Jupiter when there was like 30 full moons at once. It'd be bad.
Hey now! The American Godzilla was a fine movie!
...for a hokey remake of "Beast from Twenty-Thousand Fathoms". As a Godzilla movie, though? Hell no.
I agree. Had that movie been called "Twenty-Thousand Fathoms" or some such, I might even have liked it. But calling it Godzilla was a travesty. If you're making a Godzilla movie, I have two requests:
1) He should breathe fire.
2) He should knock over at least one building.
Gino (Godzilla in Name Only) did neither.
At least the real Godzilla killed him (see "Godzilla: Final Wars") in a pretty cool scene that involved BOTH of the points above.
|
Creative Director
|
No kidding. Leave it to Hollywood to turn a frikkin Godzilla movie into a damn love story. Nothing against love, but there are other topics for movies. Like HUGE FRIKKIN MONSTERS, for example.
Let's hope they never get their hands on Brain Dead or Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The thought of a guy with a running, bloody chainsaw throwing smouldering looks at some chick would make me swear of media forever. ;-)
I actually didn't mind that either (although the "acting" involved was reprehensible); most of the actual Godzilla movies have significant human interest elements in them, and most of them actually have LESS giant monster action than the Devlin/Emerich version.
It's all about how they handled their star, really.
The REAL Godzilla, for example, wouldn't get all tangled in bridge cables. He'd walk right through them.
Ahem...doesn't Son of Godzilla establish that Godzilla is female? It was that movie I was remembering when I typed my earlier entry. Let me go on record to state that the American Godzilla was an abomination of cinema and should be burned. Long live Cloverfield (now there's a movie for knocking down buildings)!
Ahem...doesn't Son of Godzilla establish that Godzilla is female?
I haven't seen it, but sons do have fathers most of the time :P "Satan's Son" doesn't mean the devil is a she, either.
|
Found a pic of the little ugly - funny, I don't remember him having two eyes on his face (the eyestalks are kinda hard to see there). I'm gonna need to get a copy of this flick now - I haven't seen it in years.
It's worth it for the Lo Pan quotes alone.
Fair Warning...
Too much talk about the Devlin/Emerich Godzilla movie will spur me into a frothing maniacal rampage that only exposure to PROPER Godzilla movies can cure. It'd be like the Incredible Hulk being bitten by a werewolf, and then being flown to Jupiter when there was like 30 full moons at once. It'd be bad.
We won't be ditching any of the SRD monsters at all in the Pathfinder Monster Book. Every "lesser-used" monster in there is someone else's favorite or campaign lynch-pin, after all...
Even shocker lizards? And digesters? Say it ain't so!
We won't be ditching any of the SRD monsters at all in the Pathfinder Monster Book. Every "lesser-used" monster in there is someone else's favorite or campaign lynch-pin, after all...Even shocker lizards? And digesters? Say it ain't so!
I used shocker lizards the other day.