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I'm talking about closed content monsters: beholders, displacer beasts, mindflayers, umber hulks and carrion crawlers. At first I thought it would be easy to replace or ignore them, as there are so many other cool monsters around there, and the stories I'm able to tell with them are equally as interesting, so I don't miss them from a narrative point of view.
But I feel the game lacking something without them. I want my players to fight big floating balls with eye beams, giant centipedes with paralyzing tendrils and brain-eating squidmen.
I know you can't write them in for copyright reasons, but please leave them a space to live in Golarion!
I know you can't write them in for copyright reasons, but please leave them a space to live in Golarion!
Since they can't go and say that "Beholders don't exist on golarion", they cannot really ban them.
And unless they do ban them, going out of their way to say that those critters are out, it's no big deal at all to include them:
Carrion Crawlers wander sewers, Yuan-Ti haunt the Mwangi, beholders and mind flayers some of the deeper regions of the Darklands.
Officially, Paizo already said that they won't do carbon copies of those monsters. There won't be a "Spectator" floating eye-ball monster or anything like that. They don't want to abuse loop-holes that would enable them to pull this off.
Instead, they will have other critters take their place, or return to the roots - Earth's myths and pop culture. For example, there will be some Snake Men, as seen in countless movies and stories and myths.
And I think the Gith will be replaced by the Lashunta, the mental perfectionists from Castrovel the Green, Golarion's neighbour planet hubwards.
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I always loathed Beholders, both mechanically and aesthetically. (Those smokepowder loving militaristic hippo-men from Spelljammer who thought that they looked too ridiculous to take seriously? I'm with them.)
If I wanted to vaguely adapt the concept, I'd call them Elder Eyes (a nod to EverQuest's Beholder-ripoff, the Evil Eye) and have them appear as one giant eye, only tweaking it to be a disembodied eye that does have a body, in some other plane or spacial dimension. Only it's eye manifests in the material realm (or at least, in this *place* in the material realm) and chaos, madness and death follows in it's wake as it causes disasters both natural and unnatural to fall upon the things it sees. These things wouldn't have any sort of society, as they'd be more like probes, manifestations of the wandering dreams of sleeping things from the darkness between the stars. Those who know of this, the cultists of the Great Old Ones, call them the Sleepwalkers or the Dreamer's Eye.
So you've got your big floating eyeball with an alien incomprehensible agenda and all sorts of magical powers that happen to those around it. Also, weird side-effects, like plant-life around it withering and dying, or transforming into lush alien life (some vegetable, some insectoid!) that dies hours or days later, or freezing solid...
I do kind of love the Displacer Beast and the Mind Flayer, 'though. I'll miss seeing official Pathfinder-ized versions of them, even if I can just use the old ones unofficially.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8
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We should do some amateur fluff or something.
This is good. It is also allowed. I think James or one of the guys said that we could do things on the messageboards like say "this diety can be converted to this diety"* but they could not get involved in that themselves.
* Back when none of us really knew much about the Desna and her lot. Who would want to do that now?
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Owner - Johnny Scott Comics and Games
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So you've got your big floating eyeball with an alien incomprehensible agenda and all sorts of magical powers that happen to those around it. Also, weird side-effects, like plant-life around it withering and dying, or transforming into lush alien life (some vegetable, some insectoid!) that dies hours or days later, or freezing solid...
Ever see "The Crawling Eye"? Classic sci fi fare which isn't too far from your idea...
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Officially, Paizo already said that they won't do carbon copies of those monsters. There won't be a "Spectator" floating eye-ball monster or anything like that. They don't want to abuse loop-holes that would enable them to pull this off.
Instead, they will have other critters take their place, or return to the roots - Earth's myths and pop culture. For example, there will be some Snake Men, as seen in countless movies and stories and myths.
And I think the Gith will be replaced by the Lashunta, the mental perfectionists from Castrovel the Green, Golarion's neighbour planet hubwards.
For snake people we already have the lamnia matriarchs
I had an idea for a critter that could take over the beholder's eyestalk mechanic: A darklands radiated medusa, whose snake hair learned more tricks than turning people to stone.
About six months ago, I took part in a paizo poster redesign of the mind flayer (with an emphasis on its Cthulhian aspects). Anyone recall where to find that thread?
Creative Director
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Although I'm not really interested in having "Eye Masters" or "Brain Slicers" show up as obvious replacements for the non-OGL classic monsters, those monsters DO have important role in the game. As a result, we've found several monsters that DO work well as replacements for a lot of them...
Beholder: No real replacement
Carrion Crawler: Otyugh can work here...
Githyanki/Githzerai: No obvious replacement here
Mind Flayer: Intellect devourer (or perhaps Pathfinder #6's Denizen of Leng)
Slaadi: Proteans (our chaotic neutral race)
Displacer Beast: Something that'll maybe be showing up in early Legacy of Fire
Kuo-Toa: Skum (see Into the Darklands)
Yuan-Ti: Serpentfolk (see Into the Darklands)
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Carrion Crawler: Otyugh can work here...
Kuo-Toa: Skum (see Into the Darklands)
Yuan-Ti: Serpentfolk (see Into the Darklands)
I like Freeport-esque Serpentfolk better than Yuan-Ti anyway, so that's a plus for me. I tweaked them down to LA+0 (before the powering up of other races) and had their shapeshifting actually involve shedding their serpent skins (which took different amounts of time and effort, depending on level / HD, so that only a 5 HD Serpentfolk could do it as a full-round action).
Kuo-Toa always seemed like the weakest link in the G1-3/D1-3/Q1 series of modules, so I won't terribly miss them either.
I'm not allowed to use Carrion Crawlers anyway. I killed too many PCs with them. For the same reason, Grell and Ghouls are discouraged... (Save seventy-bazillion times or be Paralyzed, then Coup de Graced!)
I'd call them Elder Eyes
Set, that was awesome.
It reminds me of Ilsensine, the Illithid god, as well. I'm not sure if it was canon or not, but in our Planescape game Ilsensine had nerves that were planar pathways that stretched between his realms and the prime material planes where Illithid were present.
I really hope they use the elder eye thing. If not, I will. It fits the role of both Beholders AND Illithid quite nicely.
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Beholder: No real replacement
Carrion Crawler: Otyugh can work here...
Githyanki/Githzerai: No obvious replacement here
Mind Flayer: Intellect devourer (or perhaps Pathfinder #6's Denizen of Leng)
Slaadi: Proteans (our chaotic neutral race)
Displacer Beast: Something that'll maybe be showing up in early Legacy of Fire
Kuo-Toa: Skum (see Into the Darklands)
Yuan-Ti: Serpentfolk (see Into the Darklands)
Thanks! :)
I can always make Elder Eyes (nod nod, wink wink) a random encounter in the Darklands, or put one or two of them instead of any other Darklands BBEG.
Carrion Carwler/Otyugh... Could work. The main problem here is that I like a lot the Carrion Crawler mini from DDM (my players call it "huggies" ("abracitos")). But I like Otyughs too, so I could make them a 50/50 encounter.
And you have just completely changed the way I'm going to present PF6 to my players: IMC, Leng is going to be populated by squid-head "denizens", with its own sub-race of thralls-livestock. They'll hate it, I'm sure >:)
This maybe a stupid idea, but what about creating a version of the Pain Elementals of the Video Game Doom? Since they are way weaker than the Beholders you can even make swarms of them.
Just imagine, instead of yet another swarm of insects, you get a swarm of one-eyed-floating-meat- balls throwing fireballs at your party.
I always loathed Beholders, both mechanically and aesthetically. (Those smokepowder loving militaristic hippo-men from Spelljammer who thought that they looked too ridiculous to take seriously? I'm with them.)
The Giff, oh man, the Giff. I really miss those guys.
I always loathed Beholders, both mechanically and aesthetically. (Those smokepowder loving militaristic hippo-men from Spelljammer who thought that they looked too ridiculous to take seriously? I'm with them.)The Giff, oh man, the Giff. I really miss those guys.
Giffyanki? Giffserai? :D
I wasn't aware that paizo couldn't use them?? I thought they could use anything that is in the 3.5 MM according to the OGL. It was a surprise to me that they have non-OGL monsters, I haven't even considered this until the OP mentioned this.Hhmmmm.......
I wasn't aware that paizo couldn't use them?? I thought they could use anything that is in the 3.5 MM according to the OGL. It was a surprise to me that they have non-OGL monsters, I haven't even considered this until the OP mentioned this.Hhmmmm.......
The 3.5 MM is not valid resource according to the Open Game License. Only creatures in the System Reference Document are valid for use.
Only creatures in the System Reference Document are valid for use.linkified
Yeah, thanks. I am aware of the srd, I use it all the time. I have never read the OGL and I wasn't aware of the restrictions on what documents you can use and what you cannot. I know I have ran a few modules that have always pointed to the monster manual when I was running a specific encounter so I thought everything in there was fair game to use. I was more or less just surprised!
I must say that you folks on paizo are very helpful. I have been perusing the boards for about a year now but just started posting recently. I am very grateful for the help that the members have been so quick to supply. At the risk of sounding corny I will say I love the all things paizo, the products,the message boards,and the members.
Yeah, thanks. I am aware of the srd, I use it all the time. I have never read the OGL and I wasn't aware of the restrictions on what documents you can use and what you cannot. I know I have ran a few modules that have always pointed to the monster manual when I was running a specific encounter so I thought everything in there was fair game to use. I was more or less just surprised!
I'm not quite sure about the page references. Could be a d20 versus OGL thing (there's two different licenses: The d20 License and the Open Game License).
Anyway, you can use everything that's open content. As far as I know, d20srd.org has everything from wizards' 3e stuff that is open content (i.e. most of the three core rules, Epic Level Handbook, Psionics Handbook, Faiths & Avatars, and Unearthed Arcana).
There are parts of those books (including character generation rules, and a number of critters) you cannot use. The rest of the books wizards did are right out.
Other companies are more open with their content. As far as I know, Paizo's rules material is all open content.
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Yeah, thanks. I am aware of the srd, I use it all the time. I have never read the OGL and I wasn't aware of the restrictions on what documents you can use and what you cannot. I know I have ran a few modules that have always pointed to the monster manual when I was running a specific encounter so I thought everything in there was fair game to use. I was more or less just surprised!
I'm not quite sure about the page references. Could be a d20 versus OGL thing (there's two different licenses: The d20 License and the Open Game License).
Page references are allowed as long as you don't use the book's entire name (I think that if you notice, for page 33 of the monster manual, it will say "MM 33", it won't even say p33. I think that the d20 license allowed companies to reference the books completely and the OGL they had to find that loophole to reference material.
Page references are allowed as long as you don't use the book's entire name (I think that if you notice, for page 33 of the monster manual, it will say "MM 33", it won't even say p33. I think that the d20 license allowed companies to reference the books completely and the OGL they had to find that loophole to reference material.
Yeah, thanks. I am aware of the srd, I use it all the time. I have never read the OGL and I wasn't aware of the restrictions on what documents you can use and what you cannot. I know I have ran a few modules that have always pointed to the monster manual when I was running a specific encounter so I thought everything in there was fair game to use. I was more or less just surprised!
I'm not quite sure about the page references. Could be a d20 versus OGL thing (there's two different licenses: The d20 License and the Open Game License).
Yeh, MM 33, I have noticed that. It never says monster manual.
Thinking about Kuo-Toa...
I always wanted Kuo-Toa to stand in for the Deep Ones, myself, which they've had on and off success in doing. They're strange fish men worshipping dark and twisted god-like things and they have a lot of interesting/creepy abilities, (I love the motion sensing eyes,) tools, and "prestige classes" (Whips & Monitors.)
On the other hand, in most D20 worlds, they've been edged out of the ocean and dwell deep underground, and in general, have to compete with Sahaugan, Skum, and kinda-sorta the Locathah for space on the D&D gamer brain-space as creepy, creepy fish people. They worship a goddess who can best be described as a Lawful Evil lobster with boobs... which kind of is another competing point between them and the Sahaugin, who worship a Lawful Evil shark (sans boobs.) I remember that for Dragon Magazine, James J kind of had to come up with a chaotic-degenerate-remnants version of the Kuo-Toa just to justify officially giving Dagon his Deep Ones.
So... yeah, I kind of miss the Kuo-Toans but I don't miss the baggage I had to work around to get them where I wanted them to be... (I converted the ones in Shackled City to Dagon worshippers,) which, I know, is foolish, since as DM, it's My World, I get to say My Fish-Men are Different.
Thinking about Kuo-Toa...
I always wanted Kuo-Toa to stand in for the Deep Ones, myself, which they've had on and off success in doing. They're strange fish men worshipping dark and twisted god-like things and they have a lot of interesting/creepy abilities, (I love the motion sensing eyes,) tools, and "prestige classes" (Whips & Monitors.)
On the other hand, in most D20 worlds, they've been edged out of the ocean and dwell deep underground, and in general, have to compete with Sahaugan, Skum, and kinda-sorta the Locathah for space on the D&D gamer brain-space as creepy, creepy fish people. They worship a goddess who can best be described as a Lawful Evil lobster with boobs... which kind of is another competing point between them and the Sahaugin, who worship a Lawful Evil shark (sans boobs.) I remember that for Dragon Magazine, James J kind of had to come up with a chaotic-degenerate-remnants version of the Kuo-Toa just to justify officially giving Dagon his Deep Ones.
So... yeah, I kind of miss the Kuo-Toans but I don't miss the baggage I had to work around to get them where I wanted them to be... (I converted the ones in Shackled City to Dagon worshippers,) which, I know, is foolish, since as DM, it's My World, I get to say My Fish-Men are Different.
Fie on you! Blibdoolpoolp is such a fantastic word.. go on say it out loud. I have a T-shirt with it on and the lobster head (if people ask I say it's a german heavy metal band)
Awesome name. Blibdoolpoolp.
I loved Gogglers (as we called them)with their crazy degenerate madness, invisibility spotting eyes, their dodgy electro powers and their sticky/slipperiness. Plus a race that has mad clerics and monks (and assassin clerics in the old days) as it's leaders.
I am sorry Skum, the aboleth slave race have nothing on these bad boys. (Unless Skum got some better tricks than rake... pff rake, isn't that a cat trick?)
Fortunately there are so many great new monsters being created it will be a while before I miss 'em.
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If I wanted to vaguely adapt the concept, I'd call them Elder Eyes (a nod to EverQuest's Beholder-ripoff, the Evil Eye) and have them appear as one giant eye...
I did a similar sort of thing a few years back, when I started running the Shackled City AP for Arcana Evolved. Since AU/AE doesn't have beholders either, I had to remake Vhalantru? into a Tyrant of Eyes - basically a giant floating eyeball, with a halo of smaller eyeballs floating around it like ioun stones.
...only tweaking it to be a disembodied eye that does have a body, in some other plane or spacial dimension. Only it's eye manifests in the material realm (or at least, in this *place* in the material realm) and chaos, madness and death follows in it's wake as it causes disasters both natural and unnatural to fall upon the things it sees. These things wouldn't have any sort of society, as they'd be more like probes, manifestations of the wandering dreams of sleeping things from the darkness between the stars. Those who know of this, the cultists of the Great Old Ones, call them the Sleepwalkers or the Dreamer's Eye.
So you've got your big floating eyeball with an alien incomprehensible agenda and all sorts of magical powers that happen to those around it. Also, weird side-effects, like plant-life around it withering and dying, or transforming into lush alien life (some vegetable, some insectoid!) that dies hours or days later, or freezing solid...
But then you go and make it 27,000 times cooler! Much better than my (slightly tweaked) Tyrant of Eyes! :)
The name Blibdoolpoolp might be funny, but I can't respect anything that sounds like it would fit in right beside Lala and Tinky-Winky. ;-P
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I did a similar sort of thing a few years back, when I started running the Shackled City AP for Arcana Evolved. Since AU/AE doesn't have beholders either, I had to remake Vhalantru? into a Tyrant of Eyes - basically a giant floating eyeball, with a halo of smaller eyeballs floating around it like ioun stones.
[snip]
But then you go and make it 27,000 times cooler! Much better than my (slightly tweaked) Tyrant of Eyes! :)
Au contraire! The halo of smaller eyes like ioun stones is totally cool as a visual, and, for added creepification, they could be eyes it's *stolen* from other creatures, preferably, other spellcasting creatures, allowing it to steal their abilities! Oh, it has a petrification eye, but that's because it hunted down and blinded a medusa. It also has a death eye, a big, red, bloated thing it tore from a catoblepas. Naturally, it's immune to gaze effects, making these sorts of creatures easy pickings for the Eyestealer. The effects of other spell-like abilities turn into eye-based attacks, and it can take one such power per eye (so it's always looking for Warlocks and critters with multiple SLAs, as it needs an eye for each power...).
And yes, Blibdoolpoolp is a funny name. But I've never liked Kuo-Toans anyway. Make them into a sect of Troglodytes or Sahuagin or whatever, and they'll be fine. It's not like the game needs yet *another* race of degenerate lizard / snake / fish / frog people.
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Au contraire! The halo of smaller eyes like ioun stones is totally cool as a visual, and, for added creepification, they could be eyes it's *stolen* from other creatures, preferably, other spellcasting creatures, allowing it to steal their abilities! Oh, it has a petrification eye, but that's because it hunted down and blinded a medusa. It also has a death eye, a big, red, bloated thing it tore from a catoblepas. Naturally, it's immune to gaze effects, making these sorts of creatures easy pickings for the Eyestealer. The effects of other spell-like abilities turn into eye-based attacks, and it can take one such power per eye (so it's always looking for Warlocks and critters with multiple SLAs, as it needs an eye for each power...).
That was fantastically cool.
I did a similar sort of thing a few years back, when I started running the Shackled City AP for Arcana Evolved. Since AU/AE doesn't have beholders either, I had to remake Vhalantru? into a Tyrant of Eyes - basically a giant floating eyeball, with a halo of smaller eyeballs floating around it like ioun stones.
[snip]
But then you go and make it 27,000 times cooler! Much better than my (slightly tweaked) Tyrant of Eyes! :)Au contraire! The halo of smaller eyes like ioun stones is totally cool as a visual, and, for added creepification, they could be eyes it's *stolen* from other creatures, preferably, other spellcasting creatures, allowing it to steal their abilities! Oh, it has a petrification eye, but that's because it hunted down and blinded a medusa. It also has a death eye, a big, red, bloated thing it tore from a catoblepas. Naturally, it's immune to gaze effects, making these sorts of creatures easy pickings for the Eyestealer. The effects of other spell-like abilities turn into eye-based attacks, and it can take one such power per eye (so it's always looking for Warlocks and critters with multiple SLAs, as it needs an eye for each power...).
And yes, Blibdoolpoolp is a funny name. But I've never liked Kuo-Toans anyway. Make them into a sect of Troglodytes or Sahuagin or whatever, and they'll be fine. It's not like the game needs yet *another* race of degenerate lizard / snake / fish / frog people.
great idea for beholder thingy.
I can see I am likely unable to convince you of the cool wierdness of Kuo-Toans. How appropriate that such an evolutionary dead end as the Gogglers would struggle even to find a place in the imagination of the gaming community.
Blibdoolpoolp... say it slowly, let it roll about in your mouth. Awesome.
The problem I have with skum versus kuo-toa is that skum don't do anything. No ability to see invisible. No ability to generate electricity. No adhesive. No slippery. No pincer staves. No lunatic fish guys running around in murderous frenzy. Nothing.
Unless you Paizo guys have done something with them I don't know about. I don't have any Second Darkness stuff so tell me what I'm missing regarding skum. Sell me on them.
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I agree, its a crying shame, but Skum are completely lacking in any interesting abilities. The only thing you can do with them is give them cool origins, and they just dont have the chops to be real Deep Ones- theyre sad, broken mutants, things that should be dead by now. The aboleths abandoned them, then turned up a few milenia later and said "what? you guys are STILL here?"
Frankly, Sauhuagin are just plain better as real antagonists. I can only think of one way to make skum a truly interesting monster: re-design. for PFRPG, skum need to be given an overhaul. give them a pale echo of the aboleth Slime ability, give them some psionic abilities (being created by aboleths, some natural ability might have rubbed off.)
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Skum also have a stupid name, and have been plagued by lackluster art.
Really, sad, sad creatures. If Pathfinder can pull out whatever lightning struck when they re-envisioned the Goblins, the new Skum might finally be interesting enough to be worth using. (Then again, IMO, they still haven't managed to do that again. I think it was magic lightning...)
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I remember running Night Below and then the classic GDQ modules..my players got totally fed up with Kuo Toa, Aboleths and all the under dark races so much so they have never wanted to go back there.
Blibdoolpoolp...oh yes such a cool diety concept but didn't WOTC have her eaten by Sekolah at some point?
and as there are Deep ones on Golarion
Dagon...theres a real fish god
yes just say it
Dagon
Cthulhu Fthang
Skum = blah. Why not just make something new?
Barring that...given that skum are a sort of mutant why not turn them into a template?
Frankly, Sauhuagin are just plain better as real antagonists.
I adore Sahuagin. Love them to death. Mmm... sahuagin and the elemental plane of water. Fun stuff.
Thinking about Kuo-Toa...
I always wanted Kuo-Toa to stand in for the Deep Ones, myself, which they've had on and off success in doing. They're strange fish men worshipping dark and twisted god-like things and they have a lot of interesting/creepy abilities, (I love the motion sensing eyes,) tools, and "prestige classes" (Whips & Monitors.)
I think wizards can't really put a claim on kuo-toas. They are clearly just deep ones copies, as are the murlocs of Warcraft.
Simply say you use a copy of deep ones and you're save. You're just not allowed to use the D&D-specific terms. Like whips and monitors.And Blippy.
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Creative Director
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Skum = blah. Why not just make something new?
Barring that...given that skum are a sort of mutant why not turn them into a template?
Because skum actually work really well to replace kuo-toas. In fact, they work BETTER, I think, since they've got pre-built ties to other Darklands races (the aboleths, primarily). As written in the SRD, skum are indeed pretty anemic on the flavor, but that's easy to fix; we've started that process already in "Into the Darklands," and when they get updated into the Pathfinder Bestiary (be it in Bestiary 1, 2, or whatever) we'll be able to adjust them even more to fill their new niche. (Which includes explaining why they have such a silly name.)