Paizo Pathfinder Bestiary: The Great Monster Debate!


General Discussion (Prerelease)

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Paizo Employee Chief Creative Officer, Publisher

Squirrelloid wrote:
Brinebeast wrote:
Also, please rethink the celestial situation. Archons, Angles, Eladrin, and Guardinals = two Lawful Good, one Neutral Good, One Chaotic Good. This doesn't quite add up. Keep Archons LG, make Angels NG, and Keep Eladrin CG. Make Guardinals a little more feral and move the to True Neutral. Keep Archons based on objects (Sword, Trumpet, Hammer, Throne, Lanter) or ideals (Justice). Also, get a little crazy with your Eladrin. Eladrin are the CG counter parts of Demons so like Demons they should have a wide variety of appearances, why do they all look like elves! Also, you can finally give True Neutral an outsider group with Gaurdinals. Take away the good aspect and Gaurdinals make great iconic gaurdians or protectors of the animals they take after.

So, assuming the great wheel cosmology (which the SRD/MM1 certainly was), there are no N outsiders in the outer planes (aside from constructs, which are still made of the alignment of the appropriate plane). If you go back to the original great wheel, true N (Concordant Opposition) is in the center of the ring and is basically a barren wasteland with a few deities homes scattered across it - most of the true N deities live on aligned planes with their pantheon or in the elemental planes. Because Concordant Opposition isn't really a plane, its the conceptual dead-space between the aligned planes.

2nd put Sigil in the middle of this, and 3.x seems to have eliminated Concordant Opposition and just made the center Sigil.

There's another fundamental reason why you can't have a true neutral outsider from teh outerplanes: All outerplanar Outsiders are *made* of alignment. That is, they are creatures of pure thought, so instead of Oxygen, Carbon, Nitrogen, etc... they are made of Good, Evil, Law, Chaos. If you have none of those things, you can't be native to the outerplanes because you're made of nothing.

So you discount the rilmani in your campaigns?

I thought they were very cool in Planescape, and that they were badly marred in 3e by no interesting take and a revised, sort of dumbed down look. They went from gaunt humanoids in baroque armor and headgear to dumb-looking creatures resembling clay golems.

I think a lot of the 3e reconcepting worked, but these guys deserved better than they got.

Sovereign Court

Zynete wrote:
Erik Mona wrote:
The current thinking is that each monster will get, at minimum, a page. That includes space for a sweet full-color illustration.
Including the invisible stalker? :)

The blank space in the 2E MM was hysterical!

The Exchange Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6

Note that angels are "any good", not lawful good. All the upper planes have angels.

Paizo Employee Chief Creative Officer, Publisher

Zynete wrote:
Erik Mona wrote:
The current thinking is that each monster will get, at minimum, a page. That includes space for a sweet full-color illustration.
Including the invisible stalker? :)

Heh. Probably.

When putting one of those guys in a module a few years back, I was surprised to learn that they are size Large.

Wouldn't these creatures work better conceptually if they were the same size as the PCs. When I think of a stalker I think of someone following you and sort of making a game out of it, weaving through crowds of people, etc. I don't think of something shaped like an ogre.

As I write this it occurs to me that the invisible stalker as written is sort of like the creature from Predator. Would he be a good example of a Large stalking creature?

The Exchange Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6

Certain advanced creatures are useful, and I'd like to see them kept. I wouldn't mind seeing the dumber ones (golden protector, celestial charger, troll hunter) get kicked to the curb, but I'd want to keep greater shadows, dreath wraith, noble salamanders (don't care about flamebrothers), elder xorns and the like.

Paizo Employee Chief Creative Officer, Publisher

KnightErrantJR wrote:

I'd disagree with the sphinxes since those have been separate monsters since 1st edition, but I agree with the templated/leveled monsters taking up space in the monster entry.

Not including all of the variants in the core monster book is not by any means saying the "don't exist" in the world or that they won't show up in a later book, of course.

Paizo Employee Chief Creative Officer, Publisher

Russ Taylor wrote:
Certain advanced creatures are useful, and I'd like to see them kept. I wouldn't mind seeing the dumber ones (golden protector, celestial charger, troll hunter) get kicked to the curb, but I'd want to keep greater shadows, dreath wraith, noble salamanders (don't care about flameborhters), elder xorns and the like.

Agreed.


I liked Eladrins and Guardinals the most of the upper planes bloods. Those bashers are the most colorful and -ready to role- "angels" since their agendas are more flexible and not so tied to their alignment. Which implies that they will more commonly walk the great ring like regular planewalkers or dwell in the Cage with the motives in the dark. Very interesing these creatures are!


Erik Mona wrote:
Squirrelloid wrote:

So, assuming the great wheel cosmology (which the SRD/MM1 certainly was), there are no N outsiders in the outer planes (aside from constructs, which are still made of the alignment of the appropriate plane). If you go back to the original great wheel, true N (Concordant Opposition) is in the center of the ring and is basically a barren wasteland with a few deities homes scattered across it - most of the true N deities live on aligned planes with their pantheon or in the elemental planes. Because Concordant Opposition isn't really a plane, its the conceptual dead-space between the aligned planes.

2nd put Sigil in the middle of this, and 3.x seems to have eliminated Concordant Opposition and just made the center Sigil.

There's another fundamental reason why you can't have a true neutral outsider from teh outerplanes: All outerplanar Outsiders are *made* of alignment. That is, they are creatures of pure thought, so instead of Oxygen, Carbon, Nitrogen, etc... they are made of Good, Evil, Law, Chaos. If you have none of those things, you can't be native to the outerplanes because you're made of nothing.

So you discount the rilmani in your campaigns?

The thing is that they are logically impossible. The outerplanes are ideal-space, which in D+D were defined as various mixtures of the Alignments taken broadly (the Law interpretation which justifies Modrons is a lot different than the Law interpretation most characters can use for thinking about how their alignment works). How do you have an ideal creature composed of no ideals? You can't. In a world where everyone is made of some mixture of G/E/L/C, a creature with *none* of those doesn't exist. It would be like saying you can have a corporeal creature with no mass-energy. Its paradoxical at a fundamental level. Its like saying 'there's a thing that exists and doesn't exist at the same time'. =><= Seriously, the crazy versions of String Theory makes more sense. Heck, Time Cube makes more sense.

Edit: And as timecube makes zero sense...


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber
Squirrelloid wrote:


So, assuming the great wheel cosmology (which the SRD/MM1 certainly was), there are no N outsiders in the outer planes (aside from constructs, which are still made of the alignment of the appropriate plane). If you go back to the original great wheel, true N (Concordant Opposition) is in the center of the ring and is basically a barren wasteland with a few deities homes scattered across it - most of the true N deities live on aligned planes with their pantheon or in the elemental planes. Because Concordant Opposition isn't really a plane, its the conceptual dead-space between the aligned planes.

I would also point out that the Planescape book did in fact have an entire set of Nuetral oriented Outsiders living in the Outlands. Anyone else recall what their names were? Also, as I remember, the Outlands were a pretty happening place, with border towns and cities always on the verge of sliding off into the Abyss or whatnot.

EDIT:Oop, my punch was beaten. Rilmani, thanks!


I happily admit that I'm still using my 1st edition Manual of the Planes. Its better than anything published since. It also has a metaphysics, which 3e seems to think it could just ignore and walk all over without dramatically changing the concept of the outerplanes.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber
Erik Mona wrote:
As I write this it occurs to me that the invisible stalker as written is sort of like the creature from Predator. Would he be a good example of a Large stalking creature?

I think the predator was supposed to still be medium sized. Tall, but still within the human size frame.

... The Xenomorphs... now... those might class as size Large stalking creatures. In the original movie, it was a skulker and a stalker, not a rampaging hordeling.

I think I remember reading in the Giger art book for Alien, that they had to find someone 7 feet tall to wear the alien's suit.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Charles Evans 25 wrote:

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?

The project's complex enough as it is. Therefore, no contest/competition style event will be associated with it. We're already ordering art for the monster book, in any event, and we've got LOTS of established artists we're working with. The core monster book isn't an appropriate place for us to take risks with unestablished artists, to put it bluntly.

Dark Archive

Erik Mona wrote:

When putting one of those guys in a module a few years back, I was surprised to learn that they are size Large.

Wouldn't these creatures work better conceptually if they were the same size as the PCs. When I think of a stalker I think of someone following you and sort of making a game out of it, weaving through crowds of people, etc. I don't think of something shaped like an ogre.

I agree. They should be medium size. In general fantasy invisible stalkers are not the same as invisible giants.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Justin Sluder wrote:

James/Erik, etc.

How about a free web enhancement with whatever creatures from the SRD which don't make it into the PPB?

Myself and I'm sure others in the community would be more than willing to help with the simple conversions needed for whatever doesn't make the cut.

Free web enhancements are unlikely. We'll have our hands full getting the actual print product in line, and as a result we don't have time to do much at all in the "web enhancement" scene.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Dennis da Ogre wrote:

Is there going to be an effort to make the monsters slightly more consistent with regards to Challenge Ratings?

I would rather have a shorter, more balanced book than a longer book thrown together and filled with quick straight across conversions. I know ecology type stuff is out but perhaps a small section on tactics?

Oh, is this to be part of a subscription or is it going to be a separate purchase like the core book?

Yes. Working to make monsters fit their CRs is a goal. For the most part the majority of the SRD monsters are pretty close (with a few exceptions, such as the ogre mage and the rakshasa); things picked up from d20 sourcebooks are certainly going to need a lot of work though.

And at this point it's not part of a subscription. It's not even officially on a schedule yet even!

Dark Archive

I may have missed the post earlier, as i am too lazy to read all the post but one monster needs to come back: Froghemoth. I think one of the ToH books had it. Paizo needs to get that sick puppy back into general play and let all players quail at their impending doom!

Dark Archive

Aspis Drones FTW! What can I say, I was a big fan of the slaver series.

I know, not open content....but we need some goood evil insect men -with multiple shields and swords.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

DarienCR wrote:

In such case, it wouldn't make sense to include RACES (not monsters) in this book. And the drow, duergar, svirnefblin are all races, you'd have to put in some levels in an NPC class in them, thus more suited for the NPC book.

However, I can see from here a big crowd against excluding the drow (for the twinkie reasons you know) from the book, and I wouldn't like to see a book for races AND another one for NPCs....or a book dedicated to only one race such as the fearful Races of... series.

I trust Paizo will make the right decision, though, you always do (or get close enough anyway).

:)

The way I see it... anything that currently has a Level Adjustment in the current rules (such as drow, tieflings, svirfneblin, and duergar) aren't really balanced to be baseline classes. Most of them were, in the first days of the game, built to be monsters you fight (or ally with) anyway, not as player character races. They're built more to be monsters, and therefore will be in the monster book.

Another way to look at it is to look at the races chapter of the Beta: the races listed there are the core races for the game, and therefore they're not "monsters" and might not show up in the monster book.

Sovereign Court

Brinebeast wrote:
Please get rid of the redundant monsters that were found in the MM. For example did we really need a Female Sphinx monster, A Good Male Sphinx Monster, an Evil Male Sphinx Monster, and a Neutral Male Sphinx monster.

Egyptian Criosphinx - D&D gave it the entire personality it has, but it's not a made-up D&D Deadline Monster.

Hieracosphinges are basically gryphons with falcon heads instead of eagle heads, used in heraldry. But still, they're a "thing".

Androsphinges are actually the Egyptian "true sphinx" while the Gynosphinx was the Greek adaptation of the Sphinx, occupying different psycho-social real estate.

So, yes. We did really need all four, unless you want to defile Gary Gygax's memory by making D&D not historically accurate.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Brinebeast wrote:
Please get rid of the redundant monsters that were found in the MM. For example did we really need a Female Sphinx monster, A Good Male Sphinx Monster, an Evil Male Sphinx Monster, and a Neutral Male Sphinx monster. Also get rid of advanced monsters as seperate monsters. For example the Hound Archon and the Hound Archon Hero or the Lamussa (sp) and the Golden Protector. An entry for a Sphinx, Hound Archon and Lamussa is all that is needed and would allow room for other monsters.

Same goes for nagas and golems to a point. This is certainly a place we can compress the book a bit. We'll DEFINITELY be dumping the advanced monsters. Better instead to use that space to make new monsters to fit a needed CR vacancy.

Brinebeast wrote:
Also, please rethink the celestial situation. Archons, Angles, Eladrin, and Guardinals = two Lawful Good, one Neutral Good, One Chaotic Good. This doesn't quite add up. Keep Archons LG, make Angels NG, and Keep Eladrin CG. Make Guardinals a little more feral and move the to True Neutral. Keep Archons based on objects (Sword, Trumpet, Hammer, Throne, Lanter) or ideals (Justice). Also, get a little crazy with your Eladrin. Eladrin are the CG counter parts of Demons so like Demons they should have a wide variety of appearances, why do they all look like elves! Also, you can finally give True Neutral an outsider group with Gaurdinals. Take away the good aspect and Gaurdinals make great iconic gaurdians or protectors of the animals they take after.

We're already well into this rethinking, mostly because we can't use words like Eladrin and Guardinals. Currently, it works like this: Archons = LG, Agathions = NG, Azatas = CG, Angels = LG, NG, and CG. Angels have no real evil counterpart, and they are sort of their own weird category. On the evil side, we've got Devils = LE, Daemons = NE, and Demons = CE. And for the neutrals, we've got Aciomites = LN and Proteans = CN. We don't really have a Neutral race yet, but we're tossing around some ideas. As for the themes these planar "races" fulfill, those are also pretty much already set in stone, as detailed in the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting hardcover (and coming up soon in "Guide to the Great Beyond.")

Scarab Sages

Heathansson wrote:
Yeah, why do all dire animals have some pineal tumor leading to bizarre bone growth?

I was at the Royal Ontario Museum a month ago. They had some cool displays of prehistoric mammals - like Dire Sloths the size of a Grizzly Bear.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

deathboy wrote:
I may have missed the post earlier, as i am too lazy to read all the post but one monster needs to come back: Froghemoth. I think one of the ToH books had it. Paizo needs to get that sick puppy back into general play and let all players quail at their impending doom!

There's a froghemoth on today's blog.

If there's ONE (1) monster I'll be fighting tooth and nail to get into this book from the Tome of Horrors, it's the froghemoth.

Scarab Sages

James Jacobs wrote:
We don't really have a Neutral race yet, but we're tossing around some ideas.

Fly the gray flag of neutrality!

But seriously, I think a race of "Keepers of the Balance" would be an interesting concept - an amoral group of beings that interfere when sides in the planar conflicts grow too powerful. Beings that consider their use of awesome power to be restrained and controlled, and that they alone have the power to exact reasonable action to prevent catastrophe.

Heck, make them aberrations. Only an alien mind would think like that!

Paizo Employee Creative Director

KnightErrantJR wrote:
I also have to admit that I would actually be glad if some of the Tome of Horrors monsters made it in that are really classic monsters, but I was a bit confused about if this was going to be the case, given Clark's comments on wanting to do a Pathfinder Tome of Horrors, which would be kind of redundant if you guys use Tome of Horror monsters.

The Tome of Horrors has a HUGE amount of classic monsters that NEED to be in the core book. The daemons are one example, there are plenty of others. How this works with Clark's idea for a "Pathfinder Tome of Horrors" is something we'll need to discuss with him, of course, but we can't wait for the revised GSL to come out to find out if indeed we CAN do something like this, given Clark's desire to produce 4th edition content. So in the meantime, we'll absolutely be cherry-picking monsters from the ToH for inclusion in the Pathfinder RPG monster book.

KnightErrantJR wrote:
At any rate, I see the direction you guys are kind of heading here (i.e. with the monster write ups being a full page, like the Pathfinder Bestiary ones), and I apologize for kind of jumping the gun a bit and acting on some older suppositions.

There won't be room for Pathifnder Bestiary sized entries for all the monsters. Only the more complex ones will get a 2 page treatment. MOST of the monsters will have only a 1 page entry, and I'm not sure how we're gonna fit art + stat block + flavor text on one page yet.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Jal Dorak wrote:
But seriously, I think a race of "Keepers of the Balance" would be an interesting concept - an amoral group of beings that interfere when sides in the planar conflicts grow too powerful. Beings that consider their use of awesome power to be restrained and controlled, and that they alone have the power to exact reasonable action to prevent catastrophe.

Another thing to remember: the game traditionally has strong roles for good and evil outsiders, but not really for true neutral ones. The core monster book needs to focus on tradition, not breaking new ground. As a result, a new race of true neutral outsiders would probably be better-served by one of the monster books sure to follow this first one.

Scarab Sages

Erik Mona wrote:
snip...Yes. A LOT of attention will be paid to CR, with some fairly significant shifts. We will re-do everything, from the stats to the descriptions. The current thinking is that each monster will get, at minimum, a page. That includes space for a sweet full-color illustration....snip

Unassociated class levels must go. All monsters are much stronger when you add a class. Paizo modules are terrible about this, an ogre with 9 sorcerer levels is not a CR10.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber
Ken Marable wrote:


I love them, too (obviously considering I wrote that article). They are a heck of a lot of fun - both as NPCs and PCs. :)

If I ever won the lottery, one of the first things I'd do is try to buy all rights to the little guys. First Orcus screws them over, and then their left forgotten for third and most likely fourth edition and on (I know I'd gag if I saw 4e modrons appear as either Lawful Good or even unaligned!)

Allow me to shake your hand, then, good sir... at least, virtually.

One of these days, I should talk more about how I've used Modron-ity to flavor an Adventure Path.

... you know, I really think by 4E terms, unaligned is the only way they could be represented, with behavioral flavortext deliniating their orderly behavior. It's kind of the catch-all for things that aren't Paladin, Nice Guy, Villain, or Jack the Ripper.

But I suppose you probably mean WotC stripping the order/logic gears out of them?

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber
Erik Mona wrote:

As I write this it occurs to me that the invisible stalker as written is sort of like the creature from Predator. Would he be a good example of a Large stalking creature?

He WAS a pretty big guy. Definately had Powerful Build at least.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Aracase wrote:
Erik Mona wrote:
snip...Yes. A LOT of attention will be paid to CR, with some fairly significant shifts. We will re-do everything, from the stats to the descriptions. The current thinking is that each monster will get, at minimum, a page. That includes space for a sweet full-color illustration....snip
Unassociated class levels must go. All monsters are much stronger when you add a class. Paizo modules are terrible about this, an ogre with 9 sorcerer levels is not a CR10.

Unassociated class levels must not go. They must be fixed. Adding 9 levels of sorcerer to an ogre makes a weaker monster in the end than adding 9 levels of barbarian. And both are tougher than an ogre with 9 levels of expert.

I'm hoping we'll be able to find a different method of handling this, but I suspect what it'll boil down to is tinkering with how one assigns a CR to a monster overall, rather than just using some sort of catch-all mechanic like unassociated levels.

The Exchange Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6

TriOmegaZero wrote:
He WAS a pretty big guy. Definately had Powerful Build at least.

Nah. Predator weapons are distinctly human-sized. They're just high Strength - like Ahnald.

Liberty's Edge

Erik Mona wrote:
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.

Well. I'm dancing in my office, if that helps. Great idea.

Erik Mona wrote:
...at this rate I can see us doing at least one monster book a year.

Good, this means we can enjoy a solid, useful monster book to start with, and then a chance to help influence the decisions of later ones as well. Sign me up.

James Jacobs wrote:
The Tome of Horrors has a HUGE amount of classic monsters that NEED to be in the core book.

This is just so damn sweet to read!

-DM Jeff

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber
Russ Taylor wrote:
TriOmegaZero wrote:
He WAS a pretty big guy. Definately had Powerful Build at least.
Nah. Predator weapons are distinctly human-sized. They're just high Strength - like Ahnald.

Yes, but that was because it wouldn't be sporting to use Large size weapons against Medium sized prey. ^_^

Jal Dorak wrote:
But seriously, I think a race of "Keepers of the Balance" would be an interesting concept - an amoral group of beings that interfere when sides in the planar conflicts grow too powerful. Beings that consider their use of awesome power to be restrained and controlled, and that they alone have the power to exact reasonable action to prevent catastrophe.

The Concordant Killer was a bad bad monster after all....

The Exchange Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6

Aracase wrote:
Unassociated class levels must go. All monsters are much stronger when you add a class. Paizo modules are terrible about this, an ogre with 9 sorcerer levels is not a CR10.

They are sometimes bad about this, but I actually disagree with the example. An ogre sorcerer basically has more hp and some melee potential, plus the advantages of reach. However, I wouldn't buy that an ogre sorc 9 is as tough as for example a dwarven sorc 11 (both have Cha penalties, the ogre has a worse one). It's certainly better than a sorc 9, though. So CR 10 passes my eyeball test.

I'm more concerned with things like calling monk levels on a giant unassociated, or calling ALL the sorc levels on a high-Cha beastie unassociated. The basic fact is you've just got to eyeball the output a bit, as the formulas will always have cases that just don't work.

Speaking of CRs that need fixing - please please please come up with a workable way to assign CRs to lycanthropes!


Erik Mona wrote:

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.

I lack both, but would still covet it. :)

As for preferences:

*Drop the PC races
*Drop the advanced versions of same thing
*More real-world animals, vermin, and dinosaurs
*Needs more yeti

Dark Archive

James Jacobs wrote:
deathboy wrote:
I may have missed the post earlier, as i am too lazy to read all the post but one monster needs to come back: Froghemoth. I think one of the ToH books had it. Paizo needs to get that sick puppy back into general play and let all players quail at their impending doom!

There's a froghemoth on today's blog.

If there's ONE (1) monster I'll be fighting tooth and nail to get into this book from the Tome of Horrors, it's the froghemoth.

Yeah I saw the picture and remembered the Arena from AoW with it as well and went hell yeah.

So thank you Mr. Jacobs for bringing back a fond memory of my High School years.

Dark Archive

Well, I kinda liked the Yrthak and the Destrachan...
I grew fond of the Yrthak since the ecology article in dragon.

But count me in on the anti-belker, -delver (god, what a waste of space...), -devourer, -digester, -gray render, -mimic, -phantom fungus, -rast, -trojanida front!
The worst of all is the achaierai! Please, get rid of this thing! It's just silly!

It's cool to see certain tendencies towards removing several monsters (like the trojanida). The posts are showing a varied taste by users, but the fact that some monsters are mentioned again and again for removal is a sure sign that these are really crap.

Scarab Sages

Jal Dorak wrote:
Rob McCreary wrote:
Digester – seriously?

I love those things. But I would rather that Paizo just admit they are supposed to be Jurassic-park-style Dilophosauri.

While we're at it, how about ditching Pikachu?

Count me in for more Linnorns. Those things are crazy!

I like the shocker lizard, but they stole if from Earthdawn!

Scarab Sages

Xaaon of Xen'Drik wrote:
Jal Dorak wrote:
Rob McCreary wrote:
Digester – seriously?

I love those things. But I would rather that Paizo just admit they are supposed to be Jurassic-park-style Dilophosauri.

While we're at it, how about ditching Pikachu?

Count me in for more Linnorns. Those things are crazy!

I like the shocker lizard, but they stole if from Earthdawn!

I thought I put in my vote for the Shocker Lizard earlier, but I must have forgot. in any case, I second this. It is a staple in my games.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber
Absinth wrote:


The worst of all is the achaierai! Please, get rid of this thing! It's just silly!

I disagree! Please keep this monster! It's silly!

Sorry, don't mean to sound like I'm being contrary at you specifically. Like I said before, I like the idea of having whimsy and oddity in my fantasy world.

There's a degree to which I saturate too much in sinister and grit in Fantasy at times. An intense tone can be fun, but even Fritz Leiber had a time-traveller riding a tame sea-serpent once, and sometimes I want something absurd like a creature out of Alice in Wonderland, Oz, or Labyrinth to lay the kabosh on my D20 PCs.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Being silly alone isn't a reason to get booted. Being silly, not having a history in the game, and filling a monster niche that's already filled all at the same time, though? That's short-timer syndrome for a monster!

Scarab Sages

James Jacobs wrote:
Being silly alone isn't a reason to get booted. Being silly, not having a history in the game, and filling a monster niche that's already filled all at the same time, though? That's short-timer syndrome for a monster!

THIS!


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber
James Jacobs wrote:
Being silly alone isn't a reason to get booted. Being silly, not having a history in the game, and filling a monster niche that's already filled all at the same time, though? That's short-timer syndrome for a monster!

Ah, and if I'm not wildly misremembering, the achaierai actually debuted in the 1st Ed Fiend's Folio. :)

My roommate has a copy on his shelf at home. I can check that later.


Any monster that has a D&D Miniature mini is fine with me. Our group plays a lot with miniatures, and I go to great length to build or modify miniatures to represent a specific monster.

- Zorg

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Drakli wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
Being silly alone isn't a reason to get booted. Being silly, not having a history in the game, and filling a monster niche that's already filled all at the same time, though? That's short-timer syndrome for a monster!

Ah, and if I'm not wildly misremembering, the achaierai actually debuted in the 1st Ed Fiend's Folio. :)

My roommate has a copy on his shelf at home. I can check that later.

Correct. The achaierai has been a part of D&D more or less as long as the githyanki, and longer than the aboleth. Silly or not... it's got credentials.

The tojinida, on the other hand... is silly, is new to the game, and while its niche (aquatic monster) is relatively solid... it's got THREE stat blocks and takes up WAY too much space...

Scarab Sages RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32

PLEASE INCLUDE A USEABLE INDEX. Yes, the books are alphabetical BUT the Scrag is a aquatic Troll variant, which I wasn't aware of so when I came across this while prepping for a game I wasted like 40 minutes trying to find the stupid things. All I ask for in my PFMM is a good index so I can look up whatever I need, like a monster variant I don't know about.

Bandersnatches!

Jabberwockies!

More Silly! 'Cause I'd love to see some of the OZ stuff. 8D

Dullahans! (sp?)


Erik Mona wrote:
Yes. A LOT of attention will be paid to CR, with some fairly significant shifts. We will re-do everything, from the stats to the descriptions. The current thinking is that each monster will get, at minimum, a page. That includes space for a sweet full-color illustration.

Cool! Sounds good.

Erik Mona wrote:
There is not currently a subscription for Pathfinder RPG rule books.

I'll bet there are more than a couple people who would subscribe to a 6 issue a year Beastiary Subscription. This would be an excellent intro to the subscription...

I'm just sayin'

Paizo Employee Creative Director

KissMeDarkly wrote:
PLEASE INCLUDE A USEABLE INDEX. Yes, the books are alphabetical BUT the Scrag is a aquatic Troll variant, which I wasn't aware of so when I came across this while prepping for a game I wasted like 40 minutes trying to find the stupid things. All I ask for in my PFMM is a good index so I can look up whatever I need, like a monster variant I don't know about.

We'll certainly have a listing for all the monsters in there. Whether it's at the start like a Table of Contents or the end like an index, though... who can say? I do agree that the way some of the stealth monsters (like the scrag and the merrow) are handled, though, is sub-par. They'll be more obvious, I hope, in the PF RPG Monster Book.

Silver Crusade

Crazy ideas for saving page count:

1. Focus on creatures more suited to the Pathfinder Adventure Path Levels (1-15); mainly creatures in the 5 to 15 CR range. The Tarrasque is great and all, but is he needed for the more common campaign levels? Save some of the bigger creatures for a future book.

2. Hold some grouped creatures for future volumes. Put a Hill Giant and a Stone Giant in the first book, and present other giants in volume two.

3. Remove a few grouped creatures entirely from the base book. Give Dragons their own Pathfinder Draconomicon! If that's too iconic, pull the celestial and infernal denizens and put them in the Big Fun Coloring Book of the Outer Planes.

Yeah, I know, crazy talk. Must be hurricane stress.

On a separate request, a proper return of the para- and quasi-elementals would be most appreciated, although they sound more like something for a second volume. Always had fun throwing oddball elementals at the party - players are OK with fire elements, but usually freak when the magma elemental pops up.

Thanks for reading.

Scarab Sages RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32

James Jacobs wrote:

There's a froghemoth on today's blog.

If there's ONE (1) monster I'll be fighting tooth and nail to get into this book from the Tome of Horrors, it's the froghemoth.

Never seen this one before, so I'd like to suggest something to ADD to it that has been documented happening on multiple occasions AND would allow for some fun introduction.

On two seperate occassions, frogs found several feet (10+) below the ground were dug up. Upon a quick glance they were believed to be fossilized only to start twitching minutes or hours after being reintroduced to the atmosphere. Check out Weird New England for more details.

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