I think the book will need a few additions. - namely a some new powerful forms of undead, and some new (replacement) aberrations.
Just my two coppers.
As far as my own preferences go, I would like to see linnorms added (some of which might double as sea-serpents if aquatic adventures are not frequent enough to merit the inclusion of sea-serpents also).
Also I would commend the RPGSuperstar *round 4* entries for attention; the Darkblight and Ooze Imperium were my personal favourites, but most if not all of the entries would engage the interest of DMs and players to be worth a place in a book.
Ooze Imperium FTW! (And I'm not at all biased.)
EDIT: Fixed the link for you, too. :)
EDIT 2, Electric Boogaloo: I'm even gonna link to The Ooze Imperium itself, if I may toot my own horn!
2. Exceptionally stupid monsters.Then, add monsters that should've been in the MM, but weren't.
Actually, I'm kind of a fan of "stupid" monsters. Please allow for some oddities in D&D.
I rather like the Acherai. It's a giant four-legged bird-ball with madness spores. I don't see what's not to like.
Please also keep the Mohrg. There's something about them things that's just creepsy cool. Undead murderers with jointed, grasping, worm-tongues/intestines. They're one of those monsters I've never used that I've always wanted to... I'm not wholey sure why I haven't yet. Perhaps their massive 14 hit dice compared to relatively simple capabilities? Stat-wise kind of lend themselves toward being thugs, but I keep wanting to see a Mohrg villain. Perhaps they could come in template form, so I could make Mohrg spellcasters, rogues, etc more easily.
Which reminds me. Something ought to be done with templates, challenge-rating-wise. Often-times, they inflate the challenge rating far higher than the creature actually is.
I'd also like to throw in my vote for having Sea Serpents of some kind, and Linnorms are almost necessary as well (and not just the no-age-category variety 3E/3.5 has.) Perhaps a breed of Linnorm might represent sea serpents?
Another creature group I'd love to see is Oriental Dragons... as long as they're done with respect. I'm very fond of the dragons of East Asia, but I've always found them kind of frustrating in their D&D context, at least the ones listed as Lung in Fiend's Folio and Oriental Adventures. They came with cool and varied visual flair, but they've always come across as both physically weaker and lacking in spellcasting capabilities. Their absense of spell-casting ability compared to the traditional D&D dragons was what I found most annoying, since dragons in Eastern mythology are viewed as spirit creatures attuned to nature, and possessing many mysterious powers, rulers of weather and water. Perhaps they could cast spells as if they were Druids, where Western dragons cast them as Sorcerers?
... and that's all I've got for now.
Boot the yrthak along with the tojanida. Did anyone ever use these?
Been playing since 1983, and this summer was the first time that I ever came across a tojanida in a game. In my defense, I was one of the players.
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Been playing since 1983, and this summer was the first time that I ever came across a tojanida in a game. In my defense, I was one of the players.
Boot the yrthak along with the tojanida. Did anyone ever use these?
There was one in a cave in Madness in Freeport, I think.
That thing got swapped into a Sea Cat so fast it's head would have spun, assuming it had a head. Sea Lions are classics. Toejamida, not so much, they can go in PHB2 with other lame lesser-played things like Druids and Barbarians and Gnomes.
Oh, wait, wrong game.
Toejamida, not so much, they can go in PHB2 with other lame lesser-played things like Druids and Barbarians and Gnomes.
Oh, wait, wrong game.
Hey, can a gnome druid/barbarian have a toejamida as an animal companion ?
I second Asian dragons. And I'm thinking that splitting SRD monsters up across more than one book is probably a pretty smart move, business-wise.
Should I feel nervous about the Pathfinder Tome of Horrors coming to fruition with the GSL in revision?
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Hey, can a gnome druid/barbarian have a toejamida as an animal companion ?Toejamida, not so much, they can go in PHB2 with other lame lesser-played things like Druids and Barbarians and Gnomes.
Oh, wait, wrong game.
He'd probably have to be aquatic to take an aquatic animal companion, but yeah, a Sea Gnome Were-Dolphin Druid / Barbarian could have one.
Or he could just slap the elemental air-creature template (from Manual of the Planes) on it and have a non-aquatic Tojanida with a perfect fly speed of 100...
Aside: Air-template flying Giant Octopus? Suh-weet!
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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I second Asian dragons. And I'm thinking that splitting SRD monsters up across more than one book is probably a pretty smart move, business-wise.
Should I feel nervous about the Pathfinder Tome of Horrors coming to fruition with the GSL in revision?
If anything, it should be a win/win.
Clark didn't want to forfit the right to make 3.x tomes (true20, pathfinder, savage worlds, etc) so all the revision might make possible is a 3.x tome and a 4.x tome.
Win win
From the sounds of it, it's not 'cool enough to exist,' so much as 'cool enough to be in the first monster book.'
Probably true, although I would still worry that if its not good enough to make it in the first book, something will always come up to push it out of later installments as well. Plus as cool as Pathfinder monsters are, and as much as I would pick them up, it seems like for people that might be more interested in getting an "SRD" Monster book to keep running games with, it might be more useful to have the SRD monsters in one book.
Unless of course the marketing strategy of "there is no one core book" is spreading.
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The Ooze Imperium is actually a good idea. I always found the Ooze choices in the existing MM to be too limiting, so some variation would be nice. I'm gonna cast a vote for that. the other entries weren't bad either, and i think it would benefit Paizo to try and include some of them since then they'd have their own original bestiary going instead of copied and overdone, though maybe reimagined, monsters.
Mind the Machine was my second favorite from that set, though it was a close call for first against the oozes.
I would also like to put in a vote to bring back the Flumph, but that is most likely never going to happen and will prolly be shouted down here, though seeing as it was in tome of horrors, and a pathfinder tome of horrors is rumored, it may be more likely then i think.
I vote for having the Death Knight included if possible. He's more than a monster, he's a true villain!
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Humans, humans, humaaans!!!
And the Gargantua! I've been waiting for it since 3rd edition came out.
humans as a monster entry would be great for groups where the players play monsters like kobalds or goblins, plus it always seemed unfair to me that dwarves, halflings, gnomes and elves got entries and humans didn't.
I would like to see a large variety of animals, vermin and their monstrous counterparts. That way there is one place to reference these critters which makes it easy to slap templates on them and make them worthwhile and interesting foes.
Players killed at the hands of a Spellwarped Deer while hunting will most likely never forget they were killed by a DEER.
Also DIRE should be made into a template that can be applied to any natural animal. That way there doesn't have to be a gazillion DIRE ANIMAL entries and players are free to make their own.
Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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Couple of quick points.
It's looking like the core rulebook will be about 600 pages. s a practical matter of costs, the monster book cannot be this long. We want to illustrate every monster in the book, which means each monster will have an art price tag of about $150.
We also want to use a format that gives every monster at least one page, with more complex monsters like dragons getting a spread. The art costs for a 600 page book built like this would be astronomical, and would force us to set a pricepoint about $50.
Right now a few people are complaining about the lack of a tojanida and yrthak. What do you think the complaining would be like if the book cost $70?
So, as I said, some sacrifices will have to be made. As someone else posted, this doesn't mean that the monsters are "out of the game," just that they will appear in a later volume.
The core monster book will probably not contain a lot of "Pathfinder" monsters, which is to say monsters specific to the Pathfinder Chronicles campaign setting or monsters introduced in the Pathfinder Bestiary.
Basically, the monster book will contain a nice, solid mix of open creatures from the Monster Manual and Tome of Horrors to create a new core creature list. This will look a lot like the current "core" but with a few of the third edition newbies swapped out for monsters with a nicer first edition vintage.
As someone else posted, creatures that tie into spells and class abilities are must-haves, and we're not going to spread the core giants over a bunch of books or anything.
We don't have a final page count yet, but I'm guessing it'll be between 256 and 350 pages. Somewhere in there.
Building a book like this is sort of like a puzzle, and there are going to be some pieces left over.
Which is fine, because at this rate I can see us doing at least one monster book a year.
Hope that's ok with everyone. :)
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Basically, the monster book will contain a nice, solid mix of open creatures from the Monster Manual and Tome of Horrors to create a new core creature list. This will look a lot like the current "core" but with a few of the third edition newbies swapped out for monsters with a nicer first edition vintage.
Any hints as to what 1st edition monsters are being considered?
My suggested guidelines for cuts:
Erik, I for one really appreciate this kind of specific information. Sounds both reasonable and good. (Thanks for the ToH reassurance!) Although, there is a part of me that just relishes the idea of a ridiculously huge monster book, no matter how impractical the costs (maybe something about dropping it on table dramatically at the beginning of every encounter?).
Any chances to see a Poodle in the Animalcompanion/familiar section?
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Ditch any creature that has no literary or mythological background of any sort. IF it's not intrinsically cool. Pathfinder #2's carefully researched background on Lamias really pleased me. If it's something an old TSR writer cooked up around an unusually shaped piece of garbage they were using as a miniature, please give it the axe! Terrasque stays, Catobelpas goes. (unless I'm wrong, and there's some mythological underpinning to the Catobelpas that I am unaware of).
EDIT: Pirated!
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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Erik, I for one really appreciate this kind of specific information. Sounds both reasonable and good. (Thanks for the ToH reassurance!) Although, there is a part of me that just relishes the idea of a ridiculously huge monster book, no matter how impractical the costs (maybe something about dropping it on table dramatically at the beginning of every encounter?).
I have considered putting together an atrociously huge monster book by combining two or three books (and errata) into a giant alphabetized titan limited edition for gamers with more money than sense.
But first things first. :)
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Erik, I for one really appreciate this kind of specific information. Sounds both reasonable and good. (Thanks for the ToH reassurance!) Although, there is a part of me that just relishes the idea of a ridiculously huge monster book, no matter how impractical the costs (maybe something about dropping it on table dramatically at the beginning of every encounter?).I have considered putting together an atrociously huge monster book by combining two or three books (and errata) into a giant alphabetized titan limited edition for gamers with more money than sense.
But first things first. :)
Nah, there aren't enough gamers out there like, ooooh, shiny! IT MUST BE MINE!!!!!
I have considered putting together an atrociously huge monster book by combining two or three books (and errata) into a giant alphabetized titan limited edition for gamers with more money than sense.
But first things first. :)
Wonderful! With one prerequisite already met, I guess this will give me some time to make some money!
Any chances to see a Poodle in the Animalcompanion/familiar section?
Poodles shouldn't be listed in Animals, but in Vermins.
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Creative Director
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Some quick thoughts before I head in to work...
Obviously non-OGL material isn't expected, but please do include "clones" for the truly iconic stuff (Yuan ti, Mindflayers, Gith). I'm pretty sure Paizo can do a better job setting up these niches anyway.
I don't want to make obvious clones of these creatures. In some cases, things like our serpentfolk (for yuan-ti) or skum (for kuo-toa) or the old classic intellect devourers (for mind flayers) will stand in nicely for some of the iconic stuff still retained by WotC, but in cases like the beholder I'm not that interested in trying to copycat.
Ditch any creature that has no literary or mythological background of any sort. IF it's not intrinsically cool. Pathfinder #2's carefully researched background on Lamias really pleased me. If it's something an old TSR writer cooked up around an unusually shaped piece of garbage they were using as a miniature, please give it the axe! Terrasque stays, Catobelpas goes. (unless I'm wrong, and there's some mythological underpinning to the Catobelpas that I am unaware of).
This I disagree with fervently. Monsters like the otyugh, the bulette, the roper, and the rust monster are as much a part of the game as dragons in my opinion. But that said, the vast majority of the core classic monsters DO have some basis in mythology or history or legend, so the amount of "old TSR writer" monsters is probably smaller than you think. And again, those monsters that I just mentioned above are great examples of ones that are pretty much GUARANTEED to be in the book.
Do include as much Golarian fluff as possible, even if it must be in its own section. Rules can survive in a vacuum, monsters shouldn't. The ecology of monsters in Golarion is what sets it apart from other settings for me. This world really feels like no monster was just "plopped in", but rather they were all planned from day 1 (which is sort of true...)
This is another sort of trouble area, since this first Pathfinder monster book isn't a Golarion book. It's our analogy to the Monster Manual, and just as the D&D Monster Manual had monsters for ALL the campaign settings, so must this one. We aren't going to have much Golarion flavor at all in there as a result. Sure, the goblins will look and act like the Burnt Offerings goblins, but the book's goal is to provide stats for as many monsters as possible. It's a reference book and an art book well before it is an ecology or society book, and one of the places we'll probably HAVE to keep things short and sweet is individual monster flavor. Golarion can continue to feel like no monster was just plopped in, and while every monster in the Pathfinder MM will have a place and a role in Golarion, we'll be talking about that in the Pathfinder Adventure Paths, Modules, and Chronicles products, not in the world-neutral monster book that serves as the core monster reference for the Pathfinder RPG as a whole.
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Creative Director
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And no need to cut a MM monster for a sea serpent. Its just a Giant Constrictor Snake's stats.Only if you want it to be lame. I'd rather it be a snake-like outsider from the elemental plane of water. And to explain why it's so elusive, it probably has some sort of dimension door, or plane shift, or invisibility. Oh, and it dissolves into water when slain, so you never have a corpse to present as evidence of its existence.
I sort of disagree here a little. A sea serpent in this game WOULD be cool, but it doesn't need weird powers of hiding since the purpose of a sea serpent in the game wouldn't be to be a mysterious rumor. Also... it's a little illogical to go through the trouble to make sea serpents so elusive when chances are good that on most PC ships there's going to be something a lot more fantastic and bizarre and weird as part of the crew than a plain old sea serpent could ever be... :-)
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Creative Director
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But... but... your Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting retails for $49.99 on your store.
What's wrong with a $50 monster manual?
Oh. Right. You want to make the basic Pathfinder rules generally available, and DMs on a limited budget don't know that they need to start saving now... :D
Oh alright then.
I like the enormous leather-bound, gold-leaf (or gold paint, anyway) lettered deluxe Bestiary idea though....
Correct; we want the book to remain as affordable as possible. In addition, it will probably be out at the same time as another book that's going to be pushing 50 or 60 bucks that folk will want to buy at the same time (the Pathfinder RPG), and then there's always the question of how we here at Paizo are going to be able to afford to print and produce two enormous books and how we're gonna find time to create the content.
There's more playing into the size limit of the PF RPG monster book than keeping its price down, in other words.
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Creative Director
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Humans, humans, humaaans!!!
And the Gargantua! I've been waiting for it since 3rd edition came out.
Kaiju/Gargantua are certainly monsters.
But are humans? Are dwarves and elves? Duergar and drow are, sure... but do people really want pages of human soldiers and elven scouts in their monster book? Wouldn't they rather have stats for these guys in another product?
Humans, humans, humaaans!!!
And the Gargantua! I've been waiting for it since 3rd edition came out.
Kaiju/Gargantua are certainly monsters.
But are humans? Are dwarves and elves? Duergar and drow are, sure... but do people really want pages of human soldiers and elven scouts in their monster book? Wouldn't they rather have stats for these guys in another product?
Thank you! This has always annoyed me conceptually, as well as content-wise.
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Humans, humans, humaaans!!!
And the Gargantua! I've been waiting for it since 3rd edition came out.
Kaiju/Gargantua are certainly monsters.
But are humans? Are dwarves and elves? Duergar and drow are, sure... but do people really want pages of human soldiers and elven scouts in their monster book? Wouldn't they rather have stats for these guys in another product?
Yes! Please put them somewhere else!
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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Erik/Jacob:
However many entries the PPB ends up with, it's going to take a lot of art to fill it. There are aspiring artists here on the boards; what about a 'Superstar' competition to find an artist to draw some of those pictures for you (to be paid at the same rate as regular 'known' artists, naturally. :D) Would that be possible?
Probably not.
We take great care with the look of our products. Any artists who want to participate should send a portfolio of art to our art directors. If they like what they see, they'll probably hire the artist for something. If not, it's a no-go.
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Humans, humans, humaaans!!!
And the Gargantua! I've been waiting for it since 3rd edition came out.
Kaiju/Gargantua are certainly monsters.
But are humans? Are dwarves and elves? Duergar and drow are, sure... but do people really want pages of human soldiers and elven scouts in their monster book? Wouldn't they rather have stats for these guys in another product?
ok, i'm going to avoid a rant/argument thing here using spoilers,
now, I'm all for removing the player races (those in the PHB) from the MM. but if you put one in then I would expect them all to be put in. I am a large proponent of fairness on this issue.