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Wait, what are we doing? We should be bombarding them with questions right out the gate!
Will dryads be keeping the 3.x woodgrain finish?
Will the Tarrasque be buffed up?
Will we get more insight into derro experimentation?
Will we find out which monsters are safe to eat?
Will we be seeing any new unique creatures introduced(spawn of Rovagug or otherwise?)
Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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Right now, no.
Of course, the Pathfinder Advantage will apply to this item.
Truth be told, we will probably set up a NEW subscription for rulebooks in the Pathfinder RPG line, but that's a bit off in the distance.
No offense Erik, but don't we have enough subscriptions? Just asking.
Edit - As in count me in as a NO for that kind of subscription. Sorry.
As to whether or not there are too many subscriptions... I'm not sure.
A lot of people find a subscription to be a convenient way to get stuff. People are requesting Item Card and Map Pack subscriptions.
I guarantee you there will be lots of people who will want to set up a subscription to the rulebooks.
I do not expect every customer to buy every product that we publish, so I certainly take no offense.
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Basically a 'superscriber' subscibes to every subscription possible. The 'charter' refers to being one of the people who shelled out for a subscription to Pathfinder right after the traumatic Dungeon and Dragon magazine extinction of '07.
On a more serious note, could someone explain all the various appends ala "superscriber", etc. I know it has something to do with how many subscriptions one has but don't know the lowdown.
Ah. Thanks!
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As to whether or not there are too many subscriptions... I'm not sure.
A lot of people find a subscription to be a convenient way to get stuff. People are requesting Item Card and Map Pack subscriptions.
I guarantee you there will be lots of people who will want to set up a subscription to the rulebooks.
I do not expect every customer to buy every product that we publish, so I certainly take no offense.
Too many? You might be getting to the limit. I really doubt if I could sustain another one beyond a rulebook subscription (though I definitely want that one). The Modules subscription is pushing it for me, but I want that dang Superscriber tag.
Subscriptions do make things easier (assuming one's budget allows), not having to make notes as to what is coming out, what to go look at the bookstore or Amazon for. I essentially had a WotC 3.5 rulebook subscription at my FLGS, so it makes perfect sense to at the very least have the option for one here at Paizo.
One thing I would love to see in the Bestiary is standard equipment/treasure for every creature that has treasure. One of the things I find most tedious when setting up an encounter is to generate what kind of equipment the creature has, so any help there would be much appriciated.
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I do not expect every customer to buy every product that we publish, so I certainly take no offense.
We have no choice anymore! We're all hopelessly addicted! Your books are like heroin, only better illustrated! ;-)
But getting a new subscription just to keep the superscriber tag is just crazy... :-)
Hear that sound? That's more of my 40th b-day money going to Paizo's coffers. :)
Young sprat. Bragging are we? :D
How much of the book do you think will be Open Content?
If we preorder (or subscribe, should that become available), do we get the .pdf as well?
Right now, no.
Of course, the Pathfinder Advantage will apply to this item.
Truth be told, we will probably set up a NEW subscription for rulebooks in the Pathfinder RPG line, but that's a bit off in the distance.
Ah, that's one questioned answered, then.
My only concern is that number: 250 monsters. That's half of what the Monster Manual has. Are you counting differently? How any of the open content monsters will be left behind?
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I guarantee you there will be lots of people who will want to set up a subscription to the rulebooks.
Yeah, I'm interested, although with big-ticket items the reduction on Amazon is also pretty big; of course, there's still the benefit of getting the pdf, but that price gap between Pathfinder Advantage and Amazon price certainly starts to look like an issue. I know you can't compete with Amazon without cannibalising your own network of stores and so on (and somehow stopping Amazon from getting them would be bad, too). Current price gap is about $11 (of Amazon over Pathfinder Advantage purchase) and Amazon offer free shipping. The .pdf is great for some of us, including me, but I don't personally value* the .pdf at the price listed on the site (which is more than Amazon charge for the hard copy) so I don't feel like I'm getting a theoretical $85ish dollar value for $42 plus some portion of my monthly shipping.
I guess I go the subscription route because I'm lazy and I like Paizo enough to prefer to give you my money directly (and I do like pdfs as a backup although I hate them for a first read). I'd want an estimate of the likely average monthly cost (I now that rulesbooks will be both sporadic and more expensive, but some good-faith guesstimate would be fine), as Lisa gave a while back for superscribers (which I think was about $50-something). Anyhow, Paizo and Reaper will between then continue to get just about all of my money (now that I have mostly finished getting 3.x stuff from resellers).
*Obviously, it's worth what you can get for it. It's just not worth $35 (or $25 minus the Pathfinder Advantage) to me, but I am sure that others disagree.
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My only concern is that number: 250 monsters. That's half of what the Monster Manual has. Are you counting differently? How any of the open content monsters will be left behind?
Actually, going to d20srd.org, if you remove the generic entries ("Demon" as opposed to "Vrock" and "Glabrezu") and then remove the sample monsters that've had templates or class levels added, and the PC races, you're at 361 monsters.
If you don't count animals and vermin against that number, you're down to 294. Count things like "Vampire" and "Vampire Spawn" as one monster, or "Ghoul" and "Lacedon", and you're down to 284. Ditch templates from that count, and 278.
I could easily find 28 monsters to cut from the SRD.
Belker, Bralani, Delver, Digester, Deep Dwarf, Girallon, Phasm, Xill, Yrthak come immediately to mind. If you don't include example Swarms, that's another six. 15 right there, and no one would even notice. Leave the Mephits out and you're at 25.
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Creative Director
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WOOT !
WOOOOOT !
I have one question regarding and one request:
1.) Erik, do you know which monsters got cut from the 3.5 MM, apart from the copyrighted ones and the Tojanida ?
2.) I want a badass Wayne Reynolds cover on this, featuring the Cloaker, the Catoplebas and the Invisible Stalker ;)
I can guarentee you a bad-ass Wayne cover. But it won't have cloakers or a catoblepas. It'll certainly have some invisible stalkers, though.
And we have worked out a pretty solid list of the monsters that are going into the book, but we aren't going to be releasing that list anytime soon. MAYBE once the book's release date draws closer...
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Creative Director
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My only concern is that number: 250 monsters. That's half of what the Monster Manual has. Are you counting differently? How any of the open content monsters will be left behind?
Think of the 250 monsters as the minimum. We still aren't sure how many we can fit on a page. Will the aboleth take up one page? Can we get two animals on one page? How many pages will the dragons eat up? How many pages will we use for back-matter and how-to-build monster rules? We don't know yet. We only know that there's at least 250 monsters.
The total number of PAGES in the book is gonna be greater than the Monster Manual, of course. But yes... there WILL be monsters from the MM left behind in this book, particularly since we want to include some from the Tome of Horrors and other sources. What ones get left behind is the choice we need to make in the coming months... but I'm pretty sure that the ones that are left behind will be included in the Pathfinder Bestiary II.
If the monster was in the original first edition Monster Manual, though, chances of being in the book are pretty high.
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My only concern is that number: 250 monsters. That's half of what the Monster Manual has. Are you counting differently? How any of the open content monsters will be left behind?Think of the 250 monsters as the minimum. We still aren't sure how many we can fit on a page. Will the aboleth take up one page? Can we get two animals on one page? How many pages will the dragons eat up? How many pages will we use for back-matter and how-to-build monster rules? We don't know yet. We only know that there's at least 250 monsters.
The total number of PAGES in the book is gonna be greater than the Monster Manual, of course. But yes... there WILL be monsters from the MM left behind in this book, particularly since we want to include some from the Tome of Horrors and other sources. What ones get left behind is the choice we need to make in the coming months... but I'm pretty sure that the ones that are left behind will be included in the Pathfinder Bestiary II.
If the monster was in the original first edition Monster Manual, though, chances of being in the book are pretty high.
Yes, but what about the ice weasels?
So James, when DOES?!?!? the Pathfinder Bestiary II come out? ~greedy tone in my voice~
Think of the 250 monsters as the minimum. We still aren't sure how many we can fit on a page. Will the aboleth take up one page? Can we get two animals on one page? How many pages will the dragons eat up? How many pages will we use for back-matter and how-to-build monster rules? We don't know yet. We only know that there's at least 250 monsters.The total number of PAGES in the book is gonna be greater than the Monster Manual, of course. But yes... there WILL be monsters from the MM left behind in this book, particularly since we want to include some from the Tome of Horrors and other sources. What ones get left behind is the choice we need to make in the coming months... but I'm pretty sure that the ones that are left behind will be included in the Pathfinder Bestiary II.
If the monster was in the original first edition Monster Manual, though, chances of being in the book are pretty high.
Okay, that's quite reassuring. I guess things like making ogre count only for one monster, even though there might be two stat blocks for it (ogre and ogre barbarian) will count for more.
Will that Bestiary II be open content, too?
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While I understand the feeling that there are a lot of subscriptions (certainly my wallet is feeling it), the ability to *own* a paper copy and *use* the pdf copy is awesome for me, and I'll sign up for the PFRPG Rulebook Subscription as soon as it is available. (Gotta keep up that Superscriber tag, after all.)
Also, I'm soooo excited for this book!
Darn. Posted on the wrong thread; too many windows open at the same time... original post removed to another thread, and smurf.
Gah! I need a wishlist function so i don't have to put all the minis my brother wanted back into the cart when i pre-order this!
Yay Monsters!
Heh - and for me I just went ahead and ordered everything in my cart before pre-ordering this.. Sneaky Paizo!
Yay Monsters - and they come first - like 1st edition! :)
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Director of Game Design
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Will it have Ice Weasels?I hate when no-one on the paizo staff steps forward to answer the important questions.
Seriously guys, this is a need to know question.
Ice Weasels are not currently on my list.. but I'll see if I can make some room....
Well.. I guess nobody needed green dragons...
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
Ice Weasels are not currently on my list.. but I'll see if I can make some room....
Well.. I guess nobody needed green dragons...
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
If I need a green dragon, I can always mix a blue and a gold one.
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Will it have Ice Weasels?I hate when no-one on the paizo staff steps forward to answer the important questions.
Seriously guys, this is a need to know question.
Ice Weasels are not currently on my list.. but I'll see if I can make some room....
Well.. I guess nobody needed green dragons...
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
See this is why I love paizo, because they understand what is truly important.
Pfft, as if anybody ever needed "green" dragons, just mate a yellow and a blue dragon, no need to waste a whole page in the bestiary for that.
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Creative Director
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Okay, that's quite reassuring. I guess things like making ogre count only for one monster, even though there might be two stat blocks for it (ogre and ogre barbarian) will count for more.
Will that Bestiary II be open content, too?
Probably. All the monsters in Pathfinder are open, after all... no reason to stop that just cause there's a hard cover involved.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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If I need a green dragon, I can always mix a blue and a gold one.Ice Weasels are not currently on my list.. but I'll see if I can make some room....
Well.. I guess nobody needed green dragons...
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
Please... Blue dragons do have some standards after all...
We'll have one page dedicated to dragons and one page dedicated to a paint-by-number dragon so that our customers can have whatever color dragon they want in their Bestiary. You want a rainbow dragon? Paint it! You want a red dragon? Paint it! You want a half green dragon half black dragon zombie werewolf vampire ethereal hippocamp dragon? Uh ... probably not enough room to paint.
This is my best idea yet!
Well.. I guess nobody needed green dragons...
Nope. Serves them right for messing with elves. That's what you get if you mess with the Gentry: You're disappeared and your parking lot is reassigned to weasels.
You want a half green dragon half black dragon zombie werewolf vampire ethereal hippocamp dragon? Uh ... probably not enough room to paint.
This is my best idea yet!
Beware, HGHBZWVEHDs induce epilepsy!
This is how you're meeting down your artwork budget, right? :D
Can we expect a classic '2nd edition look' invisible stalker, too?
That was funny once. Not now. I think they can do better.
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We'll have one page dedicated to dragons and one page dedicated to a paint-by-number dragon so that our customers can have whatever color dragon they want in their Bestiary. You want a rainbow dragon? Paint it! You want a red dragon? Paint it! You want a half green dragon half black dragon zombie werewolf vampire ethereal hippocamp dragon? Uh ... probably not enough room to paint.
This is my best idea yet!
You mean you're not going to release 6 new dragons with every MM like WotC? Boo
Seriously though, what you've described is pretty much how I've always felt they made dragons...
"We need another monster for our new MM"
"How about a chartreuse dragon?"
"BRILLIANT!"
I am very excited about this book.
However....I know certain creatures have to end up on the cutting room floor. And I understand dropping Tojanidas or Phasms.
....But the Cloaker???
I love Paizo and am usually 100% behind the decisions they make. I think this is why Im scratching my head so hard on this one.
I think one of Paizoians even made a comment like 'We wont have Fire Giants in the MM and leave Frost Giants for Monster Manual 2'.
I know leaving out the Cloaker is not as bad....But c'mon its pretty darn close.
Just promise it will be in the 2nd Bestiary and I'll be fine.
Oh and I guess Pathfinder fans really can't complain anymore about stuff getting cut from 4th edition books to be in future volumes.
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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I wouldn't count the cloaker out of the picture just yet.
Also: There will be a way that Paizo readers and fans can save some of their most beloved "chopping block" monsters from the headsman's axe, I assure you.
More details later, but I wouldn't cry any tears for any monsters yet.
Except maybe the tojanida.
Dude, reread the thread. James isn't leaving the Cloaker out of the Bestiary, he's not putting it on the cover.
I know leaving out the Cloaker is not as bad....But c'mon its pretty darn close.
Whew!...Thats what I get for reading once quickly and firing off a post.
Sorry. :)